C3P11

"Covering fire!"

"Go, go, go!"

Padme threw herself forwards as a red hot blaster bolt sailed over her head. The acrid smell of burning plasteel and electronics pervaded her nose sharply. She scrabbled across the floor on her belly as clones continued firing fruitlessly against the horde of battledroids chasing them.

The nubian senator scrambled through the doorway and took up a firing position, laying down covering fire for her comrades.

Two Clone Officers screamed as blaster bolts found themselves burning through their flesh and flash-frying their internal organs. As the last clone hurried through the doorway, Padme slammed a fist down on the door control and shot it.

The white durasteel doors hissed shut, sealing off the corridor.

Well, at least temporarily.

"Hurry, lets move!" Growled an officer, bacta-bandages around his head. His sole remaining eye focused on her. "It won't hold them for long!"

None of them needed any more persuasion to motivate them; nearly half their party had been hunted down by the droids.

As they ran, Padme wondered how it all went wrong. It was a very simple plan; use the 'adhesive' functions of the grenade to stick to the ceiling and coners of the floor and set them for handheld remote detonation, then lure the droids in a fighting retreat to one of the secondary platform bridges where they could make their escape by retracting the bridges.

It had been going well, they had cut down Hunter-Killer numbers down by a quarter by luring the mindless machines into traps over and over when everything suddenly went wrong.

Grievous happened.

The Separatist Cyborg General had suddenly burst out of a wall, cutting several men off from the main as he and two of his commando droids stared at them in surprise.

She had no choice but to activate the Ion grenades in that section of the hallway. A burst of energy arced all around them, electrocuting the droids...and seven clones. Grievous was stunned, but only for a few moments.

So they ran, sealing the doors behind them as a mechanical roar of rage echoed behind them.

Now they were nearly to their escape route, with only a pair of blast doors to hold off the General.

Padme palmed the detonator as they crossed the threshold of the last doorway. The clones scattered ion grenades all along the ceiling and the gaps of the plating of the walls and floor, all slaved to the detonator in her hand. As soon as their work was done, they followed her out into the last doorway.

The door behind them closed shut with a hiss of hydraulics. Another roar of electronic pain echoed through the blast doors that closed shut in front of them.

"That'd ought to hold him for a few minutes," murmured Padme grimly as she shot the control panel with her blaster. "Where's the bridge?"

"This way ma'am," said a clone, pointing towards an open air platform. "We're activating the bridge controls."

The bridge itself was made of two parts, essentially two retractable walkways that would connect to each other upon a set of support rails. Unfortunately, they were moving too slowly for her tastes.

"Ma'am," shouted a trooper, his voice tight with fear. "He's cutting through the blast doors!"

Padme turned and saw that he was right. Four lightsabers were slowly melting their way through the military-grade blast doors, steadily cutting through the foot-thick durasteel plates.

She depressed the button on the small handheld detonator and was rewarded with a muffled scream of pain from behind the blast doors. "That'll slow him down!"

"The bridge is connected!"

Padme didn't need anymore persuasion to start running across.

Behind her, she could hear the blast doors giving way as they were halfway across the bridge.

They were three fourths across when the doors were torn apart. They had made it across when Grievous gave a screech of rage and began running after them.

"Retract the bridge!" She shouted desperately. An officer nodded and began working on the control panel. Padme turned and raised her blaster rifle. "Open fire!"

Around her, as the bridge separated and began to move away from each other, she and the clones raised their weapons and began to unload everything their powercells had left at the cyborg charging towards them.

Bright blue blaster bolts glanced off of the general's armor plating as he gave another roar of rage and seemed to run even faster.

A green bolt from a nubian-made blaster struck him in the eye, blinding him and throwing his balance off. Padme squeezed off another bolt and struck the Kaleesh cyborg in the same area, eliciting an electronic roar of pain as it stunned him momentarily.

The bridge had been retracted halfway now, Padme realized. They were safe.

"Ma'am, we should keep moving," said a clone grimly. "I'd feel better if there were several layers of blasteel between us and...what's he doing?"

Padme cast her eyes to the other platform as General Grievous backed up slightly and began running. A shiver of fear ran down her spine as her eyes met the bloodshot pair of Grievous'. The General wanted her specifically and the intent of the General's was clear.

Grievous charged and made a flying leap.

"Get the doors open!" She ordered frantically, "now!"

They ran towards the blast doors, but Padme knew it was fruitless. She backed away, eyes on the growing form of General Grievous as he fell ever closer to her.

With a cry of fear, Padme raised her arm to try to defend herself as Grievous made to slash at her with a lightsaber when his fall was aborted. Grievous gave a decidedly non-scary squawk of surprise as he floated comically in the air. Moments later, a rocket exploded into the General's side, flinging the cyborg away with a cry of pain and frustration.

-

Obiwan sighed and mentally counted his credits. "I knew I shouldn't have bet against you, Cody."

"Scratch one droid general," said Commander Cody, a grin audible in his voice as he lowered the smoking rocket launcher. "I believe you owe me quite a lot of credits, sir?"

"Yes," sighed the General, slightly unhappily. "It appears I do. Six thousand, was it?"

"Oh yes sir," said Cody as he stood up, waving to the distant figure of the nubian senator on the platform opposite of them. "Think I can knock one off Grievous' head-vanes with my blaster rifle, sir?"

"Don't push your luck," grumbled the Jedi sourly.