First Encounter (Clone Wars One-shot)

First Encounter

Emi Takori ventured into the facility and was already met by the sound of clanking metal and machines welding, cutting, and doing other tasks to manufacture droids. She remembered hearing about the first droid factory that was destroyed on Geonosis but never expected the CIS to build a backup, and on the planet Felucia no less.

Emi was twelve years old and current Padawan to Jedi Master Luminara Unduli: a very strict and by-the-book teacher. Emi always thought her master was pushing her too much and she would often try to make things more fun for her on missions even if Luminara did not like it. It felt like only yesterday that she had finished her Youngling training and was assigned her master and this was only their second mission together: their first being on the planet Naboo protecting the Queen from assassins.

Emi loved Naboo, it was her home planet and she was taken to the Jedi Order at the age of two and her family supported the idea that she needed to control her power of the force. Her family was wealthy and Emi was glad she volunteered to go instead of being forced into it. Returning to her home for that mission allowed her to see her family again but at the same time the mission proved her recklessness.

Emi crept down the corridor clutching her newly built lightsaber ready for anything. She and Luminara had split up upon reaching the main entrance. Luminara was off creating a diversion somewhere while Emi had to find the control room and start the self-destruct. It seemed easy enough but she did not know what she would be met with. The CIS were a force to be reckoned with and she wondered who would be in charge of running the place. Count Dooku had supervised the operation of the Geonosis factory and escaped the moment it was under attack by Republic forces. Emi wished she had clone troopers with her, but they were ordered to remain stationed outside the factory's secret entrance in Felucia's catacombs to minimize a firefight. Order was get in and get out. Two Jedi was a lot quieter.

Within a matter of minutes Emi reached the control room following the signs. There were screens and buttons everywhere and she was quickly overwhelmed. Which one was the destruction system? Thankfully, the room was empty giving Emi the ability to roam freely. She scanned each computer for anything that looked like something that would make things go boom but all she saw were cameras monitoring the construction of the droids and communication panels. Just as she turned around, she turned to look at the central panel again and realized she did not search completely.

Approaching the panel, Emi started touching buttons that appeared to be red. This must be it, she thought, if I do everything right, an alarm will be set off and I'll have to get out of here fast. But before she could press any more buttons, she heard footsteps and a mechanical voice she had never heard before. Emi darted around the room looking for a place to hide. The footsteps were growing closer and the door she came in was the only way out and there was no time to escape through there. Her heart raced as the chatter became louder and without thinking she quickly crawled under one of the central panels as the door opened.

Whoever came in was not only speaking in a mechanical voice, but was also pausing to cough in between, and at the same time two other voices that belonged to super battle droids responded. Emi watched as five figures walked up to the closest panel beside her and stared at what looked like a blueprint. Two of them were super battle droids as she guessed, while the other two looked like droids carrying staff-like weapons. But in the center Emi immediately recognized as General Grievous: he was the leader of the entire CIS's droid army. Emi had heard many stories and had seen countless holographic images but had never seen him in person before. He stood tall but hunched with a large cape and Emi caught glimpse of a few lightsabers in the inner pocket.

Those were not his lightsabers however. Grievous had obtained them by killing other Jedi and nobody knew how he did it. He was also rumored to not be a pure droid but a cyborg, originally a species known as a Kaleesh, but that was all Emi knew about his origins. However was that Grievous meant business and this was no place for a child like her, but at the same time her curiosity got the better of her.