#20 The Battle for Crystal City
Goose ran down the steps two at a time, bad knee aching in protest, nearly tripping several times. Heart racing, she punched the turbolift button, cursing that she hadn't been fast enough to make the last one. She paced restlessly as she waited for the turbolift to come back to her level, glancing nervously out the broken window at the ominous red dome. It was growing slowly but steadily, already engulfing the outskirts of the city. After an impossibly long wait, the doors slid open, and she waited impatiently for it to take her to the ground floor.
Bursting out as soon as the doors reopened, Goose sprinted to the first aid station. Inside, the scene was that of utter chaos. Troopers were running in every direction, doing what she did not know. The wounded lay almost forgotten on the ground as the medics, huddled together in uncertainty, were trying to figure out what to do. It didn't seem like anyone was in charge, and time was running out. She snagged Jules by the elbow as he jogged past, hoping he wasn't doing anything too important.
"Jules, what's going on?" Goose asked a little breathlessly.
"The Seps have an energy shield and are marching the–"
She fought the urge to roll her eyes, instead clenching a fist in frustration.
"Yes, yes, I already know that," Goose said with exasperation. "I meant, what's the plan with the wounded?"
He hesitated just the slightest moment, and she immediately felt her heart skip a beat. There was no plan.
"I– I mean we –" Jules stammered a bit. "We don't…know."
Of course, she'd already started formulating a plan during that interminable turbolift ride. It wasn't much, but it would do.
"That doesn't matter, all we need to do is get these men clear," Goose struggled to keep her growing fear from manifesting in her voice. "Where's the best cover? It has to be somewhere behind the heavy cannons."
"There's a large theater about a block past the cannons," Jules said after a moment, probably checking his HUD's data files. "Relatively solid construction, probably our best bet."
That would have to do. She would have preferred to move them much further away, but there simply wasn't time for that. Besides, if what she'd overheard Skywalker saying in the observation post was true, they were all toast if the droids made it to the cannons, anyway.
"Alright, Jules. We'll have to go for it," Goose sighed. Raising her voice, so that the rest of the medics might hear her, she shouted, "Listen up, everybody. We're going to evac the wounded to a theater building behind the cannons. Move critical patients first, and pack up as much of the supplies as possible, but the wounded have the priority. Jules will lead the way. Let's move!"
The last word had hardly left her lips by the time they'd already started moving, grabbing stretchers off the ground and stuffing supplies back into medkits. Not surprising at all, given how used to taking orders they were. On the flipside, it had been completely bizarre for her to be giving them. It was almost as if she commanded her own tiny regiment. However, a handful of medics would not be enough in the amount of time they had. Goose stopped the next medic who passed by, who just happened to be Coric.
"Go out and grab anyone else you can find," she said hurriedly, "we're going to need all the help we can get."
He nodded quickly, then ran out without another word. Goose scooped up her own medkit and slung it on her back, then bent to help a medic with the other end of a stretcher. Then they raced down the rubble-strewn streets, Jules and his stretcher not far in front of them. She saw troopers setting up defensive positions as she ran past, using debris to barricade the street. It didn't look like it would do them much good, but she was too preoccupied with her own problems to really care. Glancing back, her heart fluttered with fear as she saw how much the energy shield had expanded, looming large on the horizon.
Not long later, they were there. The theater might once have been an opulent opera house, before the war, but now there was only a bomb-scarred façade and dusty velvet that spoke of its former glory. However, compared to the rest of the buildings on that street, it was still in pretty good shape. They ran in, careful of the broken glass, searching for a suitable place to set up shop. The lobby was far too exposed, but they found a massive cocktail lounge that would serve their purposes. After setting down the wounded troopers and checking to see if their injuries had been disturbed during transit, they raced back out.
Goose would make that trip five times, more and more out of breath as she went, but running just as fast nonetheless. All the while, she cursed that the Republic hadn't bothered to provide medlifters, which could carry up to six wounded men at once. It had taken them just shy of fifteen minutes to pull it off, which meant that the energy shield had crept up to only a few blocks away from the front line.
Tensions rose as the droids advanced, their creaking joints audible in the nervous hush. Not a moment passed when she didn't have to fight the urge to check how close they were getting, even though she already knew. It was bad. Very bad. Satisfied the wounded were stable and safe enough for the time being, Goose numbly left the opera house and headed back toward the square. She wasn't quite sure what she intended to do, but one thing was for certain. There was no chance in the nine Corellian hells that she was going to sit this one through.
It didn't take a military genius to understand that the odds were very much against them, however. In all likelihood, the entire Republic presence on this world would be wiped out in under an hour, with her among them. There wasn't much point in hiding out in a crumbling cocktail lounge when everyone else was out there dying, and you were next. But for some reason, it didn't seem at all real to her. The whole thing felt to her like a practical joke gone horribly wrong. And no one was laughing.
Ahead of her, the heavy cannons suddenly started up, firing volleys of pure energy at the ever-expanding shield. It was a futile gesture, however, and the shots melted off the surface like snow on a radiator. Goose stopped on her tracks as she watched the demoralizing display, that old feeling of despair creeping up inside her once more. Then the cannons stopped just as abruptly as they began, and she felt a small twinge of fear as the last gun fell silent.
Any confidence she might have had fled at that moment, dread filling her heart in its wake. The Republic was backed into a corner, and it would take nothing short of a miracle to get them out of this one. Through the numbness that had settled over her, Goose suddenly realized she'd been just standing there for an awfully long time. She had slowly forced her legs to start moving, footsteps crunching in the debris, when she heard another set of footfalls running up behind her.
"Goose?" a voice called, "Where are you going?"
She knew without having to look that it was Jules. No one else would have sounded quite so worried. It took her a moment to respond since she didn't really have an answer.
"I don't know," Goose said truthfully. "Where are you going?"
He cast a nervous glance at the looming energy shield, which seemed to her to fill the entire horizon.
"I have to rejoin my squad. They can't spare anyone from the fight this time," Jules said a bit regretfully. "You should go back. Things are going to get real hot around here in a few minutes."
Goose wavered as she watched him walk away, her resolve crumbling. Perhaps it would be better if she just hid, after all. Then something else occurred to her.
"Do droids take prisoners?" she asked out of the blue.
"What?" said Jules, taken aback. "No, I don't think so."
His answer made up her mind. Odds were that the droids would kill her anyway.
"Then I want to come with you." Goose said doggedly
"But it's too–" Jules began to protest, seeming shocked.
"Dangerous?" she finished for him softly. "Yeah, I know."
"Then why?" he demanded.
Jules sounded upset, more so than she could remember before. She wished that she could summon up as much emotion as him, because at the moment she wasn't feeling much of anything.
Goose answered flatly, "There isn't much point holing up in a half-destroyed cocktail lounge if I'm going to die anyway."
"You're a doctor, not a soldier," Jules objected, exasperation creeping into his voice. "You wouldn't last two minutes"
Those last few comments triggered an instinctive response in Goose, a sort of knee-jerk reaction she made without hardly thinking about it.
"What do you think I'm going to do, grab a DC-15 and start blasting?" she snapped. Realizing her outburst had been a little harsh, she added with thick sarcasm, "as long as I'm going to die anyway, I may as well go down in a blaze of medical glory. It'll beat getting shot while sitting on my hands."
Jules cocked his head to the side questioningly, but with his helmet on she still couldn't tell what he was feeling.
"A bit selfish, don't you think?" he asked impishly, probably seeing the humor in this pointless exchange.
She couldn't deny that she saw it too. Grand gestures and self-glorifying last words were worthless, and wouldn't stop a blaster bolt no matter how much you brandished them. It surprised her that she'd even bothered with it.
"We're all farkled, anyway," Goose replied irreverently. "On the off chance that there really is an afterlife, at least I'll be able to say I died trying to save someone's life."
Jules sighed after a long pause, "I'm not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?"
Just then, the ground rocked as rounds from Separatist tanks began to pound the street a few blocks from them. The shield must have reached the front lines while they'd been talking and the fight had started without them.
"Probably, but it looks like we're out of time," she answered hurriedly as she began to run towards the explosions.
"Fine, but don't get too far away from me," he cautioned her as he matched her pace.
Goose shot him a curious look but didn't say anything, preferring to let him figure out what it meant on his own. He seemed to interpret it as a sort of mocking, although it hadn't really been her intention.
"I have a gun, remember?" Jules added defensively, "I can shoot things. You can't."
A wisp of a smile played over her lips, but it vanished as they raced past the heavy cannons on their way to the front. The energy shield crossed over them as they ran, and she felt a slight tingle of electricity as she passed through. Looking up, the sky itself was now an oppressive crimson red. Despite the large plumes of dust and smoke kicked up by the enemy tanks, Goose could clearly see the troopers were abandoning their improvised barricades in the street. It was no wonder, because without cover from the cannons it was all too easy for the droids to overrun them.
"Looks like they're falling back into the buildings to try and lure the droids in," Jules said tensely. "Might level the playing field a bit, but…"
He trailed off, and Goose didn't ask him what he was about to say. Oddly, she still didn't feel scared. She should have, but she didn't. Like he'd said, the droids had split up and were following the retreating clones off the street. The two of them turned into a side alley, the sound of blasterfire growing stronger as they ran towards it. They stopped at the back door of the building the Republic troops had just retreated into, and they could clearly hear the sounds of battle within, but Jules was hesitant to enter.
"Goose, I still don't think this is a good idea," he said uneasily. "It's not too late to go back."
"I know how to keep my head down," she grumbled back.
As if to demonstrate, she crouched down and hunched her shoulders a bit like she'd seen the clones do all the time. Jules shook his head and muttered something unintelligible as he thumbed the door sensor and darted inside, blaster at the ready. Goose followed close behind, and together they scurried from cover to cover in what turned out to be a large indoor shopping mall. It might once have been a sparkling example of the wealth of Christophsis, but now it was in utter ruin.
Signs advertising the latest in Coruscant fashion still decorated the walls, but they were pitted and blackened by blasterfire. Some of the lighting still worked, but it was given off in weird flickering flashed as if the building itself was in its death throes. What before would have been a row of elegant store fronts was now a string of darkened rooms, their glass picture windows shattered, abandoned wares littering the floor like so many dead leaves. At the end of the line of storefronts was a large central plaza where the clones now desperately exchanged fire with the ruthlessly advancing droids.
At first the droids didn't seem to notice them, but as they drew nearer to the fighting more shots came their way. They sought refuge behind a cashier's desk as more blaster bolts whizzed past them. Goose chanced a peek at whatever was shooting at then, and was gripped with fear by what she saw. A super battle droid was bearing down on them, a massive gray durasteel automaton she'd only seen at a distance before. Pure terror lanced through her as she saw that thing lumbering toward them, the first real feeling she'd had in a while.
Her voice stuck in her throat, but Jules seemed to get the message anyway. He calmly unclipped a pulse grenade from his utility belt and lobbed it over the counter at the approaching droid. From the hunks of blasted droid parts that flew past them in the resulting explosion, she assumed he'd gotten it. Meanwhile, Goose was beginning to seriously doubt her decisions. What the flaming frak had she been thinking, running headlong into a mess like this?
Jules had taken up a kneeling position, firing over the top of the counter in stoic silence, at least as far as she could tell. Realizing she hadn't even found a wounded man to treat yet, Goose glanced around for any injured troopers. Since they'd come in the back way, most of their forces were ahead of their location. The only other clone she could see was a lone trooper who had taken cover behind a jewelry display case and was shooting back in a similar stance as Jules.
Even as she watched, an enemy shot broke through the display case and punched into the trooper's gut, peppering him with shrapnel and throwing him backward a meter. Without a second thought, Goose darted out from hiding and ran to the trooper, heedless of the ongoing battle. Jules followed close after, laying down cover fire as he went. She pulled the wounded man into better cover as Jules continued to fire from behind the shattered remains of the showcase.
The trooper was unconscious but still breathing somehow, although he wouldn't be for long. A fist-sized chunk of his armor had either been blasted away or disintegrated upon the blaster bolt's impact. However, the armor seemed to have done nothing to protect him, and the soft flesh encased within was shredded almost beyond recognition. Only her many years of experience kept her hands from quavering as she lifted the warped and darkened plastoid for a better look. Goose bit her lip to contain her dismay as she surveyed the damage. His liver was all but gone, the intestines a chewed up mess, and his spleen was no better than the rest.
Goose froze. There was nothing she could do for him, nothing that would save his life. How he still had a pulse was just a fluke. He would need transplant organs and enough transfusions to replace his entire blood volume, but even then the odds were against him. In a normal triage situation, he would not have been brought past pre-op into the OR. She exhaled shakily, feeling a pang of regret as she started to leave. It was of little comfort to her that she was supposedly doing the right thing by moving on to someone with a better chance of survival.
Just as she was about to rise to her feet again, a massive explosion shook the building and Goose dove to the ground. Chunks of the ceiling rained down on her as she desperately tried to protect her head while shrapnel flew past. When her eyes had recovered from the temporary blindness of the flash, she was shocked to see that the front wall of the shopping mall was just gone. The same tanks that must have done the blasting flooded in through the gaping hole they had created.
Around her, the clones were in full retreat. It did not take her long to realize that if she didn't feel like dying, she would have to get moving. This had all been a terrible idea in the first place. Numbness enveloped her once more, and almost unthinkingly Goose began to go back the way they'd come in, silently cursing her shortsighted naïveté. It was only after she'd made it about ten meters before she realized Jules wasn't following her.
"Jules, come on!" she shouted, the tremor in her voice betraying her fear.
He had stopped shooting, and instead was kneeling over the wounded trooper she had just left. Behind him, the Sep tanks and rank upon rank of droids marched at them. What the frip was he thinking?
"What about him?" he called back, an edge to his voice, seemingly unaware that they would be overrun in mere moments.
"Forget him!" Goose all but screamed, wild with panic yet rooted to the spot.
Jules looked up sharply as if with sudden anger, but she couldn't tell for certain. Besides, she was more worried about the tanks. At this point, the only other troopers in the area were the dead.
"He still has a pulse," he said frustratedly. "We can't just leave him!"
"It would take two surgeons with the best equipment in the galaxy at least ten hours to piece him back together," she yelled back at him. "There's nothing I can do. We have to go!"
He shouted back at her, something about never leaving a man behind, but Goose wasn't listening. The droids were almost upon them, and the tanks were no further away. The window for their escape was about to slam shut.
"Jules, you crinking pain in the–" she began to yell, but never had a chance to finish.
An enormous ball of energy thundered out of the turret of an enemy tank, landing less than a meter from his feet and sending him flying through the air until he crashed into a stone pillar with a sickening crunch. Although she was far away from the blast, the force of it threw her backwards into some shelves in the storefront behind her, knocking the breath right out of her. Goose wanted to scream, but only a strangled gasp escaped her empty lungs.