Senate hostage crisis

During the Clone Wars, Jabba the Hutt's uncle, Ziro, was arrested by the Republic Coruscant Guard and Naboo Senator Padmé Amidala. He revealed that he worked with Separatist leader, Count Dooku in kidnapping Jabba's son, Rotta, in order to become master of all the Hutt Clans. Following his confession, Ziro was then imprisoned at the Republic's detention center.

Ziro hired bounty hunter Aurra Sing to assassinate Amidala, but after the attempt failed, Jabba and the Grand Hutt Council were concerned that Ziro would give the Senate their records, which detailed all of the Council's wrongdoings. Therefore, Jabba paid bounty hunter Cad Bane to get the Galactic Senate Building's blueprints from Amidala's protocol droid, C-3PO. However, 3PO did not have the blueprints, but he revealed that his counterpart, Anakin Skywalker's astromech droid R2-D2, did. Bane was thus able to get the blueprints after capturing R2, before returning both droids with their memories of the events erased so as not to draw suspicions. Returning to Jabba's Palace on Tatooine, Bane was then paid for the blueprints. Jabba, with the Council's approval, hired Bane to carry out the mission to rescue Ziro. Bane agreed to do it, for the right price.

Bane assembled a team of bounty hunters; Aurra Sing, Shahan Alama, Robonino, HELIOS-3D, HELIOS-3E, another IG-86 sentinel droid, and a pair of commando droids. Together, they then went to the Senate Building. Bane was then confronted by Senate Guard commandos and Captain Jayfon. Sing then took out the commandos. Bane and the rest of the bounty hunters then finished off the remaining ones. The commando droids then disguised themselves as Senate Commandos. Bane and the others then entered the building.

During this time, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker was meeting with his secret wife, Senator Amidala. However, their meeting was cut short when Senator Bail Organa barged in. Organa asked her to join him in a meeting with Senator Philo about the Enhanced Privacy Invasion Bill. Amidala then went with Organa and left Skywalker. However, Amidala left with Skywalker's lightsaber.

Bane and his bounty hunters then made their way through the building. Bane then finished off the remaining Senate Guards. Bane and the others then went to Control Room, taking out the droids and guards stationed. Bane then left Robonino to cut the power. Bane and the others then went to talk with the senators.

Bane and his bounty hunters surrounded the Senators and took them hostage. Senator Philo refused to listen to Bane and tried to leave. Bane then shot Philo. He then contacted Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, demanding that Ziro be released and turned over to him. At first, Palpatine refused until Robonino cut the power and building was placed on lockdown. Communication with the outside was lost. Bane then searched the Senators for communicators. However, as he comes across Amidala, Bane spotted Skywalker. He then ordered Alama and the IG-86 sentinel droid to go after him. Skywalker attempted to contact someone but was unable to do so.

Skywalker was then confronted by Alama and the droid, but realized that he did not have his lightsaber. So, he evaded them. Skywalker then went to a room with communication equipment. There, he was able to modify his comlink and contact Palpatine. Palpatine told him to get to the control room to reestablish communication. However, Skywalker cut him off when Alama came to the room. He was able to use a mind trick to throw Alama off. When the two bounty hunter split up, Skywalker confronted the droid and was able to destroy it. However, it proved to Alama that Skywalker had no lightsaber. Bane then sent Alama with Sing to meet up with Robonino and to subdue Skywalker.

Skywalker then made his way to the control room. However, Robonino then sealed the door when Skywalker ran towards him. Skywalker attempted to use a mind trick on him, but was then held at gunpoint by Alama. He then took Alama's blaster and held him at gunpoint. Sing however was able to shoot the blaster out of Skywalker's hand. Robonino then attacked Skywalker, shocking him unconscious. They then tied him and took him to Bane.

Bane then contacted Palpatine, instructing him to make a pardon disk and give to Senator Orn Free Taa. 3D then goes to the Chancellor's office and takes Taa to the detention center. There, Ziro was then freed and taken back to the Senate building. Bane and the other bounty hunters then placed bombs around the senator as they prepare to leave. However, as they make their way towards the landing platform, Bane's bounty hunters were then surrounded by Clone Commander Fox's detachment of the Coruscant Guard called in by Taa and Palpatine. However, Bane refuses to surrender threatening set to kill the senators. Thus, Bane and his bounty hunters were allowed to leave. The senators were then able to wake up Skywalker and Amidala gave him back his lightsaber, saying he dropped it. As Bane, his bounty hunters, and Ziro made their escape, he set off the bombs as Ziro's payback. Luckily, Skywalker was able to cut a hole in the floor, and saved them before the bombs went off.

Bane, Ziro, and company were pursued by a party of Jedi, with the chase eventually going down an underworld portal. The spectacle, which included the Jedi leaping between speeders, drew the attention of large crowds. As a distraction, Bane shot out the engine of a transport ship in the portal, which spun out of control and began heading for a packed landing platform. The Jedi managed to divert the ship away from the landing platform, leading it to strike the side of the portal instead. On the other side of the wall was the home of the Martez family. While their mother and father saw the ship coming, they sacrificed their lives so their daughters, Trace and Rafa, could escape. The diversion allowed Ziro, Bane, and the other bounty hunters to evade capture and disappear into the Coruscant Underworld.

Ziro was then taken to Nal Hutta before the Grand Hutt Council at Gardulla's Palace. Knowing they were behind his rescue, Ziro threatened to send the Council records to the Senate if he was killed. Ziro's former lover Sy Snootles helped Ziro escape Nal Hutta, but after they traveled to Teth to recover the records, Snootles killed him, having secretly been hired by Jabba, before delivering the holodiary to Tatooine. Ziro's corpse was discovered by Bane and Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos, who subsequently had a fight when the two Jedi attempted to capture Bane, although the Duros was able to escape.

The Jedi who had pursued Bane returned to where the crash had been. A female Jedi with green skin and dark robes approached Rafa and told the young woman that she had needed to make a choice about the transport ship, but the Jedi told her not to worry, saying the Force would be with her. The Jedi then left, but both of the sisters were left disillusioned about the Jedi and the view of them as heroes. With the loss of their parents, Rafa instilled a view in her sister that the two of them could only rely on each other. Rafa later told Ahsoka Tano, a new friend of Trace's who, unbeknownst to either of them, had been a Padawan before leaving the Jedi Order, the story while they were imprisoned in the Pyke Palace on Oba Diah.

Following the crisis, Amidala agreed to take time off and traveled with her husband to Risha Synata's ship, only to become embroiled in a skirmish. Although clone troopers had started to see open deployment as law enforcement personnel on Coruscant at the time of the hostage crisis, the failure of Jayfon and his Senate Commandos helped justify the open use of clone troopers on Coruscant itself: Jayfon and his team's failure would be remembered as a blow to trust in the Senate Guard. That their uniforms were then used by Bane's commando droids was a further black mark on the organization. While Senate Commandos had been used as a fast-action military response organization and for additional secruity for the first year and then some of the Clone Wars, they came to lose those duties to clone troopers. In time, clone shock troopers supplanted the Senate Guard, and the Senate Guard was dissolved altogether during the Imperial Era. Sometime before 3 BBY, Bail told his adoptive daughter Leia Organa about the hostage incident.