As Carth hopped in, I climbed down the ladder and noticed Carth was waiting for me, arms wide open.
"What are you doing?" I asked, still clutching the ladder.
"Trying to be a gentleman. Jump."
I sighed at his ridiculous chivalry but reluctantly jumped. He caught my waist and set me down gently, smiling the entire time. His smile was kind of doofy, so I couldn't help but smile too. Sure, he was real smooth sometimes, but sarcasm aside, he wasn't really all that bad. In time I'll probably grow to like him. We hunted high and low through the sewers, with no sign of Zaalbar anywhere.
"Mission, I don't think--"
I was interrupted when a door opened and a nasty, slimy, smelly gamorrean grabbed my hair and pulled me into the room. Considering they caught me by surprise, I couldn't fight back. I watched as Carth and Mission grabbed their blasters instantly, glowering at the gamorrean who had a tight grip on my hair. He snorted at me to translate, so I nodded as much as he would let me.
"He says lay down your weapons and he won't harm me." I said carefully.
"Tell him we said hell no." Carth growled, tightening his grasp on his blaster.
I watched as the gamorrean withdrew his axe and held it at my throat. He snorted and grunted to acknowledge that he knew basic, just couldn't speak it.
"Carth, just do as he says." I whispered.
I felt embarrassed not only by the fact that I was caught off guard, but by a gamorrean no less. It couldn't be a more dangerous creature like a Mandalorian, no it had to be a friggen' gamorrean. I maintained my calm composure, even though I had a maelstrom of negative thoughts flying wildly through my head. Mission reluctantly laid down her blaster, but remained on guard, and Carth looked around, noticing there was no way out, laid down his blaster. When the gamorrean relaxed his grip, Carth scooped up his signature blaster with noteworthy speed and shot the gamorrean straight between the eyes. I'd have to thank him for his marksmanship later as I attempted to run off, when ANOTHER nasty, slimy, smelly gamorrean grabbed me by my hair. It a mad attempt to get away, I grabbed the dead gamorrean's axe and hacked off a good portion of my hair. I tucked and rolled over to Carth who handed me my vibrosword. I smiled and cut down the gamorrean who grabbed the second time and wiped the sweat off my brow as Mission opened a nearby door.
"Zaalbar! We found you!" She screeched as she leaped into the wookiee's arms.
"It is good to see you too Mission." I roughly translated.
Mission talked a mile a minute about how great a life debt is, until Zaalbar interrupted as explained for me. He was surprised I knew his language, and I smiled at my unusually wide understanding of alien languages, as Carth had mentioned when we first "arrived" on Taris. Zaalbar, Mission Carth and I hunted around again for the back door to the Black Vulkar base. Upon finding it, Mission snickered under her breath as he cracked the codes on the shields, allowing us to enter.
"I should probably mention before we go too far that there's a rancor right where we need to go." Mission said shyly.
"A rancor?!" I asked in astonishment.
"Well, yeah, but they're easy to get by. They're huge, but that doesn't mean their brain is too." Mission added.
I sighed and continued on anyway, finding the enormous rancor Mission had talked about earlier.
"Holy.."
I couldn't even finish because the rancor came after us. I grabbed Carth and Mission and ran like hell for the entrance. The rancor roared and clipped my back with his huge claws, tearing through my armor and barely scratching my skin. I winced and continued on with Zaalbar behind me. We barely made it into the entrance and before I could gather my weapon, Carth and Mission threw the guards into the rancor's reach, and Carth pulled me closer so I didn't get picked up.
"Thanks." I mumbled.
Yeah, Carth was really smooth.