Y/N POV
Now, the invasion had properly begun. With that initial ambush easily destroyed, the B1 and B2 Battle Droids began their advance forward in their convoy-like march. They reached the door to the facility which no surprise, was sealed.
I stepped forward and approached the console, it made sense that the Republic would have sealed the place up following the outbreak of the war. This posed no problem though, I approached the console just to the left of the door and began inputting the necessary code.
It was the Republic's mistake, not changing the code as once it had been put into the keypad, the door slowly began to open, revealing a long corridor slowly the lights began to switch on allowing us to see what was ahead.
I made a simple gesture with my hand instructing the droids to advance. They slowly began to head down the corridor, maintaining their formation perfectly. There were about a hundred droids here in this batch alone. That wasn't factoring in the remaining droids on the OTHER platform who'd successfully managed to breech their door and make their way inside.
As the droids all piled in to the old facility, I stood behind for a moment accompanied by my personal task force. It was at this point, one of the Commando droids approached me and asked "Sir, what are your orders."
To this I simply turned to the remaining droids. The sounds of the main convoy got further and further away. As I'd ordered though, the Magnaguards, Commando Droids and Droidekas had remained. I responded by gesturing R3 closer, he obeyed and once again brought up a hologram of the facility.
Pointing at the lower portion of the structure, I explained. "The armoury itself was located at the lowest point of the facility. THAT is our objective." I shifted my attention to the landing platforms and said "We are here, on the upper levels. The other droids shall distract most of the Clones, those that are present shouldn't be a problem."
With the explanation complete, I stood upright again with R3 shutting the hologram off. I said "R3 shall get us through any doors we encounter. Now then, if there aren't any objections, lets go."
The Commando Droids answered "Roger Roger." While the Magnaguards and Droidekas remained silent given how they were incapable of speech. With all that out of the way, the plan had been set. Now it was time to execute it.
Entering the facility, we made our way through the series of corridors. I still remembered the layout of the place so finding our way around was no problem. I just lead the way with the droids following close behind.
It wasn't long until we came across our first wave of opposition. The voices of Clone Troopers could be heard up ahead, causing us to swiftly duck behind the wall to avoid being seen. A gesture of my hand caused the droids to do the same, with the Droidekas staying far enough back as to not be heard.
Peering around, I noticed three Clones just stood around. It seems they were completely unaware of what was happening. This was somewhat reinforced as we listened to what they were saying. The first one asked "Why do we always have to have the boring patrols?"
The second nodded in agreement "I know right, even the clankers wouldn't be stupid enough to attack a planet THIS close to Coruscant." The third laughed and said "But you know, those droids aren't the brightest! Unlike us, we're all independent from one another."
They then proceeded to contradict this statement by all cheering about it at the same time. I could have easily swooped in and finished them off then and there however I had a different idea.
Turning to the Commando Droids, I pointed to the Clones and whispered "Get them." The Commando Droids nodded before going in to make their move. They bolted forward, catching the Clones attention as they all exclaimed "Droids!"
They opened fire however it was too late. The Commando Droids flipped forward, dodging their blaster bolts before attacking, with their agility, the Clones had little time to react. Two of them were shot instantly. One of them was tackled to the ground with the droid knocking his helmet off, before drawing its blaster and finishing him off before he could recover.
I couldn't help but be impressed by how quickly they'd dispatched the Clones. I clapped slowly saying "Well done, well done. I'm impressed." The compliments were short however, there was a task still to be completed.
The sounds of blaster fire could be heard echoing distantly through the facility. It seemed the main batch of B1 and B2 droids had encountered opposition and were serving their role as a scapegoat well. Out of the three landing pads, only the middle one was destroyed. While this did cost us several droids. I was still able to instruct a pincer attack, with both battalions catching the Clones off guard while my team was able to sneak on through.
That's how it seemed at first. Outside of those three clones earlier, we went almost completely interruption free. That was until, we reached the room where the armoury was located. There were two layers of security.
The door to the armoury itself was concealed underneath this room, with a door the required a simple Astromech with knowledge of the password, R3 was present so this shouldn't be a problem.
However the steps down to this door had a shutter over them. A shutter which could only be activated remotely the same way, only with a different password. These in themselves would be easy to bypass. The shutter was easily concealed. If you didn't know it was there, you'd struggle to find it. Also, neither door could be simply blasted open as they were highly reinforced.
The real problem was what happened once we reached the room. Straight away, I turned to R3, pointed to the Astromech panel attached to the wall and ordered. "R3 access that panel and open up the shutters."
R3 gave a beep and rolled over to the panel. That's when we heard the voice of a Clone exclaim "Hey you there! Stop what you're doing!" Looking up I saw several clones all stood on the upper walkways of the room. About twenty of them in total, all with their blasters aimed down at me and my subordinates.
I couldn't help but smirk. Even if they had a higher elevation over us. We very much held the advantage. One of the Clones stated "We should have figured you'd show up here eventually Minister. You can't leave Republic property alone can you?"
I laughed, catching all the Clones off guard. "This facility? Republic property? HAHAHA! This has been in my possession since before you were even born Clone." The Clone still stood his ground. "I said stand down Minister! I won't tell you again!"
No response was given to this, instead I ignited my lightsaber and ordered. "R3, get both this door and the next open! The rest of you. Annihilate these test-tube experiments!" This caused the Clones to open fire, not that it did them any good.
I deflected each bolt that came my way with not effort, even rebounding them right back towards them! The Droidekas brought up their shields rendering them protected and the Magnaguards just spun their electrostaffs around.
It didn't take long before R3 let out a beep indicating he'd unlocked the shutter door. I responded "Very good. Now head down there and open the next one." While he did that, we turned our attention back to the clones.
It didn't take us long to wipe out the whole ambush. I managed to grip the last one with the Force and pulled him down towards me before slicing him with my lightsaber and tossing him aside.
And it was now that R3 once again returned, beeping happily to signal that he'd opened the second door as well. I looked around, the Clone bodies littered the room. I turned to the Commando droids and ordered "You, put these uniforms on and hide the bodies. I don't want anyone creeping up on us."
The Commandos responded "Roger Roger." Before doing as I'd ordered. I turned my attention to the now-open hatch leading to the now-open door.
Inside were the tools that would win us this little battle...
Augustus Graves POV
Image of Augustus Graves:
(Keep in mind Augustus didn't become CEO of the Corellian Engineering Corporation until 8 BBY. In this book he's just the second to the current CEO.)
I ran down the corridor, before flinging the door to my boss' office open! Straight away, his agitated voice asked "Augustus, what is the meaning of this?!" I hunched over, catching my breath before finally plucking up the courage.
"S-sir! We just intercepted a distress call. There's been a droid invasion at the old Shipwright's Guild facility! It's Minister L/N! It seems he wishes to launch and invasion and I believe YOU are his target." I expected my boss to panic or at least show some reaction. But instead he just asked "Is he now?"
I looked up "You aren't worried?" My boss didn't even turn his chair to face me, instead just staring out of the window in the direction of the facility. "Why should I be? If he does launch an attack. We have something he doesn't." He turned his chair and finished.
"A Jedi..."
Author's Note: And that's it for this chapter. Now, the Jedi mentioned isn't someone important, just some placeholder. If you're wondering why, you'll see at a later stage. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and as always, thank you for reading.