"Peaceful" Negotiations
“Senator Amidala, I just received word that you have ventured through enemy territory into the Outer Rim.” Palpatine, while in hologram form, spoke to her.
Catra never really liked him, still doesn’t, but she can’t outright say anything without getting into a lot of trouble. She was currently with Padme to help with her peaceful mission at her request. It would be relaxing than all the fighting Catra’s had to do, plus Jedi were meant to be keepers of the peace as well.
So it would make sense for her to join, though she suspected it’s because there hasn’t been a time where it was just her, Padme, and Lonnie as she had mostly been with Ahsoka. Speaking of Lonnie, she was sitting bored at another console while cleaning her blaster; while she generally doesn’t mind helping Padme, she wants to see some action at least.
The other one with them was less than the enjoyable company, one was C3PO, which his voice irritates Catra’s hearing, but he does help with translating when needed.
“Senator Farr requested me personally, Chancellor. His planet is in crisis. His people are starving. He's a very old family friend. I could not refuse his plea for help.” Padme explained why she had to do this; Catra could understand why. Even though Jedi were meant to have no attachments, she could understand the need to help family.
“I understand,” Palpatine nodded only slightly, “But in these dangerous times, you should be accompanied by a clone escort.”
“No disrespect, chancellor, but she does have a Jedi and her bodyguard with her,” Catra spoke up, tail twitching slightly when seeing him face her, “But if it makes you feel better, I do have a squad of clones prepared to arrive in case things go wrong. Which I highly doubt since this is meant to be a mission of peace, not of war.”
“As much as it would be fun to have some action, I don’t think throwing clones into a peaceful discussion would help smooth things over.” Lonnie also voiced her opinion.
“Hmm, very well, they do make good points. Just stay safe, senator,” Palpatine couldn’t find a reason to argue, “I wish you a safe return.”
“Thank you, Chancellor,” Padme nodded as the transmission cut off and the hologram disappeared, before swirling in her seat facing Catra, “I thought you promised you wouldn’t bring any clones with you?”
“I needed to say something to get him off our backs,” Catra squirmed slightly under her gaze, sighing slightly, “Commander Hevy was informed to stay alert but not to do anything unless I call.”
“Huh, that’s smart thinking. Why couldn’t you think of these tactics back home?” Lonnie chuckled at her.
“Cause I wasn’t leading a squad of trained soldiers,” Catra deadpanned back to her, laughing a little anyway, “But I won’t need to call them, it’s a peaceful mission...also I don’t want Padme to get mad at me.”
“Oh, I was annoyed at first, but thanks to your explanation, I feel better,” Padme smiled at them as she was piloting the ship to a landing site, “When we land, could I go on ahead as I want to surprise him with you two after. Also, I want someone to look after C3PO so he doesn’t get himself into trouble.”
“Trouble? Me? Really?” Threepio was confused, but sometimes things do go wrong when he’s involved.
“And exactly what do we get from staying on the ship?” Lonnie raised her eyebrow at her.
“Oh, I could always give you an example.” Padme smiled, landing the ship in the hanger, getting up from her seat, and giving them both a kiss on the cheek on the way out, “I’ll call you when you can come.”
Both Lonnie and Catra blushed and sat there silent for a bit before Catra muttered embarrassedly, hiding her face, “She’s so sneaky.”
“She’s a senator; I think it comes with the job description.” Lonnie rubbed her cheek, embarrassed.
Catra stood up from her seat and look out the cockpit window, watching Padme exit from the hanger with the door sliding shut behind her, before turning and walking, “Let’s extend it to where we don’t leave the hanger; it’s kinda cramped in here.”
“I can agree with you on that; come on, goldie.” Lonnie rolled her eyes at Threepio as they left down the ramp of the ship.
“It’s C3PO, not goldie.” Threepio slowly walked after them.
“Exactly, goldie.” Catra shrugged her shoulders, agreeing.
“Why do I even bother correcting you with my name.” Threepio’s robotic voice had a sigh in it as well.
Walking over to the edge of the hanger they had arrived in on, they looked out into the swampland, well, the part that was in the dome, and Catra could admit she doesn’t know why the buildings are in domes, so she planned to ask later. But she was looking out for the local fauna, though something more interesting than the giant bugs.
“Isn’t there something more interesting?” Catra gestured her claws to the bugs flying around, “We got those kinds of bugs back home.”
“Which we had to eat sometimes when we had nothing else,” Lonnie shivered, helping Catra in trying to spot anything interesting, “I don’t know what else we can expect from this swamp, though.”
“Most creatures would live under the water, so it would be difficult in actually spotting one,” Threepio spoke from behind them.
“...why does he have to make sense?” Catra whined, tail drooping.
“Well, I guess it could be better than actually making contact and having something thrown at us.” Lonnie patted her head.
“Yeah…” Catra sighed before her ears twitched, at slight static and muffled speaking before it was cut off, “I think we have missed our cue; we left our communicators in the ship.”
“Oh...crap, Padme is not going to be happy.” Lonnie turned to go to the ship but stopped when noticing the hanger door open, “Or...she was calling for help.”
Catra turned her head slowly and, seeing battle droids enter from the doorway that Padme had exited from, didn’t even have time to react as one of them had fired a rocket at the ship. Destroying it and cutting off the call for support from that way, the only good thing was that they weren’t on the ship.
“Typical they blow up the ship first,” Catra muttered, glad she hadn’t left her lightsaber on the ship.
“I think we can have plenty of time to complain later,” Lonnie tackled Catra behind cover as the droids started blasting at them, “So, can you focus so you can use your force powers?”
“A little help here,” Threepio called out, still out in the open, the droids blasts getting close to him.
“After you save goldie.” Lonnie groaned, pulling out her blaster.
While Lonnie peeked up to fire at the droids, Catra focused on Threepio, lifted him off the ground, and slowly pulled him behind cover, saving his head from blasting off. Though, there hadn’t been many droids as they weren’t expecting much conflict, as Lonnie had quickly blasted them all.
“So, from the looks of it, the peaceful mission didn’t end up being so peaceful,” Catra stood up and walked over to the destroyed droids, “I have a theory of why they’re here, but do you also have an idea?”
“From what I know, when the senate was making a choice, the vote was postponed of getting relief out to this system,” Lonnie recalled how Padme had been annoyed at the vote that day. But didn’t have much say, “Separatists probably made an offer, which at the time seemed to be the only help they get.”
“Unforantly, most of the time, when they accept, they soon realize the mistake they made.” Catra nodded, agreeing with her, tail twitching, “I’m guessing, for some reason, Padme was part of the deal.”
“That...makes sense, though it would have hurt her uncle to do so.” Lonnie nodded, putting away her blaster for now, “So what’s the plan?”
“Well, whatever stealth plan we think of, we need to consider we have the walking talking golden droid with us.” Catra pointed her claw to Threepio.
“I do believe I can keep quiet.” Threepio disagreed.
“Hm, how about Threepio can find the place of the communication here to bring in your clone buddies,” Lonnie suggested her plan, “While we go rescue Padme.”
“I can agree with that; as long as we don’t think of her as a damsel in distress, she can hold her own.” Catra snickered, ears twitching happily.
“Oh, I think we both know that. You fine with the plan, goldie.” Lonnie chuckled slightly.
“If it gets me away from you two for a while, then yes.” Threepio began walking off.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t get into too much trouble,” Lonnie sighed, “Come on, let’s go.”
“I was the one waiting for you to move,” Catra smirked, already walking ahead, tail swaying behind her, poking tongue at her from over her shoulder.
“You cheeky little,” Lonnie jogged after, stopping Catra in her tracks by grabbing her tail, causing her to squeak.
“Hey! There was no ne-” Catra’s voice cut off as Lonnie gave a quick peck on her lips, Catra just sighing, freeing her tail and grabbing her wrist, “Let’s just go free her.”
Lonnie chuckled behind Catra as they headed for the door, which opened just as they got there and had them staring right at a crab droid, who stood there shocked and silent, staring at the two girls. As quickly as they stopped, Catra rushed forward, slicing it down the middle with her lightsaber,
“Stupid crab droid, why do you remind me of the thing I most detest back home.” Catra shivered and stepped around it.
Proceeding onwards, they reached a large area where the walls were covered in moss, well that mainly was everywhere, but there were grates all along the floor to show the water underneath, which seemed to go deep, and who knows what kind of creatures swam below.
A few battle droids around, but they didn’t have the perfect scouting abilities, so Lonnie and Catra were able to sneak around quite a bit before spotting Senator Farr walking with a few battle droids and Vice Gunray. They didn’t see him as a significant threat, but he is annoying when he’s around.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Lonnie whispered as she huddled close to Catra, unintentionally speaking into her ear.
“If you can be quiet for a few seconds, then maybe I can find out.” Catra put a claw to Lonnie's lips, having slightly shivered from her speaking right into her ear.
“We are holding the Senator in the detention tower,” Farr spoke, but there was a hint of sadness, probably starting to regret whatever deal he had made from the sounds of it.
“I hope it is not too painful for her.” Gunray mocked slightly with a hint of a grin in his voice.
“They’re holding Padme up in that tower,” Catra whispered, pointing to a tall tower connected to the main building by a retractable bridge, “At least we know where to rescue her.”
“Yeah, and exactly how would be able to do that?” Lonnie whispered back to her.
Despite them being quiet and mostly hidden, one of the battle droids, for some reason, had turned around and had spotted them, “Look! A Jedi!”
“So much for any stealth option.” Both of them muttered as they nervously looked at them.
“A Jedi?” Gunray turned around confused, eyes slowly opening wide in alarm.
“Split up and meet later?” Catra suggested, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to handle this many droids by themselves.
“Yep.” Lonnie agreed.
They both ran opposite directions to confuse the droids, but they were mainly focused on Catra as she was the Jedi. But she was happy to distract them, so they didn’t end up shooting Lonnie. But there was no way for Catra to escape to, unless…
“Time to see if I really can hold my breath for that long.” Catra slid across the ground, using the force to lift a grate as she slid through it into the water.
Catra’s feet collided with something solid, but she figured that was the floor of the lake, staring up at where she had escaped through; the droids looked down but unable to see her before wandering off, probably patrolling to see where she ends up resurfacing. Then, Catra felt the ground shake beneath her feet.
Well, that’s the point she realized it wasn’t the ground she was standing on.
Quickly swimming backward, she had discovered she was standing on a large green creature, looking like a slug of some sort, but more enormous and glowing green, and both its eyes were looking at her. She could sense the annoyance in them as it looked at her before lunging forward, probably planning to eat her.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to outswim it, so she held out her hand and closing her eyes. Then, slowly opening them when the giant slug didn’t swallow her, she saw it looking at her with understanding, realizing she hadn’t meant to hurt it in the first place. Her mother had told her she had a gift with animals, with it either being the force or just her instincts. She doesn’t know.
It helped her back up to the surface before swimming back down again. Then, opening the grate and looking around, seeing the droids weren’t looking, she collected her breath, “Didn’t expect to make a friend today….”
Sighing, shaking herself to get most of the water off her, but she would be feeling cold for a while, eyeing the tower, “Now...I’ve got a long climb ahead of me.”
Lonnie hid behind a pillar inside a building, allowing the battle droids to pass, she didn’t know which way Catra had run off to, but she figured she could keep herself safe. But right now, she was tailing the one person who couldn’t protect themselves, and that was Threepio being led by battle droids. Probably to dismantle him.
“Padme was right, should have kept an eye on him more.” Lonnie sighed, readying her blaster.
Rolling out into the hallway before them, she had blasted the droid on the left but didn’t shoot the one on the right as Padme also appeared and blasted the other one apart.
“Padme?” Lonnie was half shocked, and half wasn’t; she knew Padme could free herself but wasn’t expecting to find her quickly, though.
“Mistress Padme! Oh! Thank the Maker. You’re safe!” Threepio sounded relieved as he started walking towards her, “Have you….”
“No time to talk, goldie.” Lonnie covered his mouth and dragged him into an empty hallway, Pamde following after.
They stayed quiet on either side of the doorway as a small group of patrolling battle droids wandered past, “Where’s Catra?”
“Probably climbing the tower looking for you?” Lonnie took a guess, chuckling, “She’s going to be annoyed she climbed all that way for nothing.”
“Well...at least that’s sweet of her.” Padme smiled, giggling, feeling slightly bad for Catra, “Guessing she’s the Jedi that got everyone’s attention?”
“Unless you brought a secret Jedi with you, then yeah.” Lonnie peaked out of the hallway, keeping an eye out for droids.
“This is our chance to capture Gunray, but I need you to stay calm,” Pamde made that last comment to Threepio, “Go back to the ship and call for help.”
“I regret the transmitters on the ship are out of order,” Threepio mentioned, making Padme confused, and turned to Lonnie.
“Battle droids might have...blown it up, sorry we didn’t hear your call earlier, we weren’t on the ship,” Lonnie admitted, but at least Padme was relieved they weren’t, “We were looking at the wildlife. However, we did send Threepio to find a communications room.”
“I did find one, but battle droids had stopped me,” Threepio confirmed.
“Could you try again and think of a lie to get past them?” Padme asked him, “Send a distress signal to the clones Catra had ready. Lonnie and I will track down Catra.”
“All those fantasy stories… that mom used to read me...made it seem like climbing a tower would be easy,” Catra grunted, ears laying flat as the wind was hitting against them, having climbed up so high on the tower already. That if she were to look down, the droids would look like ants.
Catra’s climb was only made more manageable by vines that had grown from the top-down, though there were parts she had to use the actual wall of the tower when vines stopped part ways. Although different surfaces make climbing easier or complex, this climb was more on the medium difficulty side.
At least, if she were to go down, it would be easy, as there is plenty of time during the fall to focus and land safely without injury; well, from this height, she would need to land on smaller platforms before going to the ground, as even from this height it could be fatal to her.
As she was nearing the top, she could hear the footfalls of droids walking across the bridge, with softer sounding footsteps accompanying them. Ears raised as she listened, hearing Senator Farr and Gunray. But, hearing that Gunray had lied about the supplies, they would receive might only happen after Padme’s execution.
“Not if I have anything to say about that.” Catra hissed to herself, climbing faster, intent on getting in there first.
“Bring Senator Amidala before me.” Gunray’s slimy voiced sounded above her, thinking that he had won.
“Um… she caused a great deal of damage to our droids,” A battle droid spoke exiting from the detention center, “And she escaped, sir.”
“I’m glad she’s safe,” Catra sighed to herself before eyes twitched slightly, not realizing she lifted herself on the last spot, “But are you kidding me!”
“It’s the Jedi!” The battle droid faced her in alarm.
“Uhh...hi?” Catra nervously chuckled as she looked at them all.
“Shoot her!” Gunray shouted.
“Time to go.” Catra quickly let go, turning around in mid-air as she started plummeting back towards the ground.
Unfortunately, she wouldn’t have a controlled landing as her foot was snagged onto a piece of the vine as she fell, closing her eyes and bracing from impact against the floor. She had stopped, but the vine had prevented her from directly hitting the ground, only causing her to fall limply onto it without harm.
“Not my proudest landing,” Catra rubbed her face, sitting up as her bi-colored eyes landed on battle droids standing in front of her, “Why do there have to be so many of you?”
Groaning, Catra quickly lifted a grate and slid into the water to dodge their laser fire, which worked until they started dropping grenades into the water with her this time. Then, having to focus, she force pushed them away from her, so she wasn’t in the explosion radius, but her ears were echoing from how many there were.
Catra didn’t have a chance to breathe, even if she could, as a super battle droid had fired a homing plasma rocket into the water, which of course, was chasing her. Try as she might, she wouldn’t be able to force push it away or outswim it, closing her eyes waiting for the pain before darkness covered her vision.
She heard a muffled explosion from outside. Eyes widening when she was pushed out, discovering the slug had shut her in its mouth, protecting her from the damage. Smiling at it, petting it gently, before climbing onto its back, sensing it had also had enough of the droids plaguing this place.
Grinning wildly as the slug slammed up through the floor, landing on a spinning droid that was focused on Threepio and teary-eyed Lonnie and Padme. Then, pulling out her lightsaber and pointing it at Gunray, “Guess who’s back!”
“The Jedi has summoned a monster!” Gunray shouted in alarm, offending the slug, destroying the other spinning droids from that comment. Then, fleeing for his ship, “ We have to get out of here!”
Yeah, I don't think so,” Catra hissed, jumping off the slug and chasing after him, “It’s your fault for making them cry….”
Running into the hanger after him, she jumped and sliced the head of the two droids which had been following him, glaring at his back as he had almost made it to the ramp. Then, her arm having a slightly purplish glow, and using all her strength, she lifted the whole ship and tossed it from the hanger and into the water with the force.
Before she can even grab Gunray, the slug had come into the hanger as well and held Gunray in its mouth, closing him in darkness, “Sluggy! No, drop it! That’s not yours!”
The slug made a sad noise of disappointment, spitting Gunray out, covered in green gunk.
Catra smirked, seeing Padme approaching who’s eyes were still slightly wet but was smiling at her. Catra pulled Sluggy to the side as Padme, and Senator Farr dealt with Gunray. Ears twitching as she looked up, seeing a republic cruiser enter the atmosphere, with dropships coming down.
“I’m sure I only had one gunship of clones waiting,” Catra mumbled while petting Sluggy, “Then again, Gunray is a huge capture, so there would be more noticeable.”
Watching one of the dropship’s landing, opening up and revealing Hevy, who had been waiting for the command to come but wasn’t expecting till after the fun was after. Making sure the other clones went to their positions before walking over to her, “Hey, Catra, who’s your new friend?”
“Oh, this is Sluggy. Saved me from being blown up,” Catra muttered before allowing Sluggy to return to the water, “Would have contacted you earlier, but the ship was destroyed.”
“Guess that’s understandable,” Heavy chuckled, “Just next time, don’t leave out of the action.”
“I understand; we need a situation where we can cause a lot of explosions.” Catra grinned; Hevy nodded and walked to make sure the other clones were standing by.
Catra turned and faced where she could sense Lonnie and Padme, sighing gently, opening her arms from them, as they tackled her in a hug, happy to see she was alright. But will still get punished for making them worry.