Raid on Ziro the Hutt's Coruscant club

"Threepio, get help! I'm being held by Ziro the Hutt!"

- Senator Padmé Amidala

The raid on Ziro the Hutt's palace took place on the galactic capital of Coruscant during the Clone Wars. After Senator Padmé Amidala informed her protocol droid, C-3PO, that she had been captured and detained at Ziro the Hutt's palace for discovering the Hutt's affiliation with Count Dooku, leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The droid contacted the Coruscant Guard, who sent a team, led by Clone Commander Fox, to storm the palace with the primary objective of rescuing the senator.

The raid saw the successful rescue of Amidala and the capture of Ziro. Using Ziro's comm equipment, the senator was also able to communicate with Jabba the Hutt, who had been ignoring communications from the Republic during this time due to his mistaken belief that the Republic intended to wipe out his entire clan, allowing her to prove that the Republic was not plotting against Jabba by exposing Ziro's hand in the true plot against him, masterminded by Dooku. This assurance permitted the forging of a treaty between the Republic and Jabba's clan, allowing Republic forces safe passage through Hutt Space, giving them access to the Outer Rim Territories, which had been cut off by the Separatists.

Prelude
"You will regret this, Ziro!''" "No. I think I will become rich'' with this."

- Padmé Amidala and Ziro, as she is taken to the dungeon



In 22 BBY, early in the Clone Wars, Jabba the Hutt's son, Rotta, was kidnapped. The Hutt gangster sent a call for help to the Galactic Republic and the Jedi. Because the Republic was in need of the space lanes though Hutt Space to access the Outer Rim Territories, which had been cut off by the Separatists, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine agreed to send Jedi aide to rescue Jabba's son. Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was sent to negotiate a treaty for safe passage with Jabba, while Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and his new Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, were dispatched to find and rescue Rotta. Jabba dictated that the Jedi had one planetary rotation to find and return Rotta, unharmed, to his homeworld of Tatooine, or there would be no treaty.

After watching Kenobi leave Jabba's Palace, Count Dooku, leader of the Separatists, entered the palace and, by way of misleading evidence, convinced Jabba it was the Jedi who had kidnapped his son and were conspiring to destroy him along with his entire clan. After Dooku had convinced the Hutt of the Republic's betrayal, Jabba angrily refused to take any communication from the Office of the Supreme Chancellor.

Learning of Skywalker's involvement in rescuing Jabba's son, Republic Senator Padmé Amidala went to the palace of Ziro the Hutt on Coruscant to convince him to contact his nephew, Jabba. She hoped to explain that the Jedi were in fact trying to help, not harm Jabba and his son so that the treaty with the Hutt clan could be established.



Ziro rejected Amidala's plea for aid, claiming there would be no treaty, and had her seized and escorted out of the palace. In a caged lift tube, Amidala managed to distract and elude her IG-86 sentinel droid escort before infiltrating Ziro's throne room, where she overheard a communication between Ziro and Dooku. Now knowing that Ziro was behind the kidnapping and in league with the Separatists, Amidala attempted to sneak out with the information.

As she was backing away from her hiding place, Amidala ran into one of Ziro's sentinel droids. She managed to disable it with a shot from her blaster but was apprehended by a second droid. When Dooku told Ziro that members of the CIS leadership would pay handsomely for Amidala, the Hutt had her thrown in the dungeon. From her cell, Amidala was able to trick her captors into activating her comlink, allowing her to inform her protocol droid, C-3PO, that she was being held captive and where she was imprisoned.

The raid
"Is anybody home?"

- C-3PO, after Coruscant Guards blast open the door



C-3PO contacted the Coruscant Guard about Amidala's abduction and piloted the senator's H-type Nubian yacht to Ziro's Palace, accompanied by Clone Commander Fox and five other Coruscant Guards. Meanwhile, Amidala was escorted back to the throne room to face her captor. Ziro felt she was too dangerous to be kept alive after discovering her call for help in the dungeon. Amidala was incredulous that Ziro would be so bold as to kill a senator on Coruscant itself, but Ziro boastfully claimed to be unafraid due to friends he held in the Galactic Senate.

At that moment, Fox's rescue team blasted their way into the palace, destroying the B1 battle droids guarding the entrance in the process. In the ensuing commotion, Amidala freed herself and destroyed the IG-86 droid guarding her with an appropriated E-5 blaster rifle. After a blaster bolt flew by his head and hit the wall behind him, Ziro slithered off his dais, making for the exit. Taking cover from return fire, the Coruscant Guards made quick work of the remaining security droids.

When the last two battle droids were destroyed, Amidala demanded that Ziro stop where he was as the clone troopers surrounded the fleeing Hutt, cutting off his escape. Ziro begged his captors to believe that he was merely an innocent pawn of Dooku, professing to love Rotta, his grandnephew. With a great deal of sarcasm in her voice, Amidala told Ziro she did believe him.

Aftermath
"Perhaps now you will allow the Republic to use your trade routes and hostilities can come to an end.''" "''«Agreed. A treaty is in order.»"

- Senator Amidala closes negotiations with Jabba the Hutt



Using Ziro's personal holocomm unit, Amidala was able to contact Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine and inform him of his uncle's treachery, forcing Ziro to confess to his nephew his part in Rotta's kidnapping. Furious at his uncle's treachery, Jabba vowed to have him punished severely.

Unknown to Amidala until she made the call, her timely intervention saved the life of Skywalker and Tano, who had just returned Jabba's son safely to him. Jabba, who until that point believed the Jedi meant to destroy him and his clan, had them surrounded and about to be executed were it not for the information provided by the senator. Amidala was also able to forge a treaty between the Republic and the Hutt clan, which would allow Republic forces free and safe passage through Hutt Space, providing them desperately needed access to the Outer Rim Territories.

Some time later, the Duros bounty hunter Cad Bane and his team infiltrated the Senate Building on Coruscant and took a group of senators hostage, including Padmé Amidala. In order to secure the safety of the captive senators, Chancellor Palpatine was forced to issue a pardon for Ziro, releasing him from the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center. As such, Amidala was as instrumental in Ziro's release from prison as she was in his capture, which sent him to prison to begin with.

Behind the scenes
The raid is only seen in the film version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and is mentioned in the novelization. A flashback to the scene of Ziro's capture can be seen during the opening narration in "Hostage Crisis," the season finale of the television series' first season.

In The Clone Wars: The Battle Begins young reader book, the clone troopers that storm the palace are called shock troopers, not Coruscant Guards.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Battle Begins
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars novel
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars film