#6 Caf and…What's a Kama?
Goose drifted to consciousness with the gradual awareness that the ship was in hyperspace. The telltale thrum of the engine and the soft vibration of the deck had slowly woken her up, though she had no idea how long the ship had been traveling.
After Goose finally struggled to full wakefulness, she grumbled sleepily as she forced herself upright. The grumble became an unintelligible groan after she realized that she'd overslept. She stared drowsily at her boots, which were by the side of her bed, but decided that it would take far too much effort to put them on, and just left them where they were.
She then heaved herself to her feet, fully prepared to wander the ship in her socks. Goose was clad only in her pajamas, consisting of a faded yellow t-shirt with Bad Spellers of the Galaxy, Untie! printed on the front, and a pair of shorts that may once have been sweatpants. She was so groggy did not even notice the state of disarray her hair was in.
At the door she paused, her bleary mind realizing she may not want to leave her quarters so incompletely dressed. Still half asleep, Goose didn't feel like getting changed, so she dug her robe out of her duffel bag and pulled it on. It was red, plaid, and slightly worn looking. The robe itself was a little too long, and it swished around her ankles a lot, but was undeniably the most comfortable thing she owned.
Normally she would have tied it, but Goose was feeling too lethargic to even manage that, so she lumbered out of her quarters thusly dressed.
Goose knew it was probably too late for any hope of getting breakfast, but she was hungry, so she made her way to the mess hall anyway. Unsurprisingly, the room was completely devoid of anyone, save the few serving droids who were still cleaning up. Goose sauntered up to the nearest droid and tapped it on what she assumed was its shoulder.
"Hey, buddy, think you can rustle up some caf and something to go?" she asked with a yawn.
The droid turned and gave a cold, mechanical stare.
"Breakfast service ended approximately 34.7 minutes ago." replied the droid in a stiff monotone, though Goose could have sworn she heard a hint of disdain, "Service will not resume until lunch. Good day."
The droid went back to its work without a backward glance, leaving Goose in a stunned silence. But only momentarily.
"I'm not waiting until lunch!" she objected, "I won't make it without at least a cup of caf."
Caf, which was only seen as liquid energy to many sentients, was to Goose the quintessence of life itself. There was no way she was going to leave without some.
"Service will not resume until lunch." The droid repeated in the same robotic drone, although it sounded vaguely annoyed. "Good day."
"Come on!" said Goose, exasperated. "I know there's got to be something left back there! I'll get it myself if I have to."
The droid ignored her. Incensed, she decided to take matters into her own hands and started toward the galley, only to be blocked by a different droid.
"Authorized personnel only." it said, "Not admittance."
Goose was in fact no longer hungry, and had reached the end of her patience. Caf was only a mere couple of meters away. She could not be turned away now. Goose snatched an unused mug from a stack on a nearby table, and shoved it into the droid's hands. Her eyes were narrowed in anger.
"Go into that blasted galley, and get me blinking cup of caf, right now" she whispered dangerously, "Or I'll have you transferred to a soup kitchen in a slum on Coruscant!"
Apparently, the droids in the room had very good hearing, because they all paused what they were doing to watch. However, her opposition was not moved.
"That is illogical." replied the offending droid, "You do not have the authority."
At that, Goose smiled grimly. Victory was close, she could practically taste the caf now. "You want to bet? I'm…friends with the quartermaster." Goose bluffed, "What's your serial number?"
The droid seemed to weigh its options, then turned and went into the galley. Goose exulted in her imminent success and smiled craftily. Soon, the caf would be hers. It emerged a few moments later with the mug filled to the brim and handed it over with contempt, though Goose chose to ignore it. The droid then returned to its work once more, as if nothing had happened. If a droid could have an ego, she would say that this one's was bruised.
Content with her morning's conquest, Goose strode out of the mess hall, and did not cause any more trouble.
"That could have been worse…" she murmured to herself once she was in the hallway.
Triumphantly, she took a drink of her caf.
It was cold.
A few minutes later, after a rather crude rant about droids and their lack of certain physical characteristics, which she was glad no passersby happened to witness, Goose took another sip of caf. She nearly spat it out, but didn't because it was too hard won.
Upon further reflection, she realized it was odd that she hadn't seen anyone yet. Of course, it was a big ship, but they had to be somewhere.
Goose thought about returning to her room, or possibly going to the medbay, but knew she'd wind up incredibly bored. She also realized that she actually missed Jules and Coric, who though rather naïve, were still decent company. Ged, Hez, and Lunn had been nice as well. She also had a pretty good idea where they all were at this hour.
At the door to the training room, Goose paused to take another sip of caf, but winced at how bad it was. She was reluctant to enter because she really had no idea who was in there, but decided to regardless because it was the only place she could think of to find someone to talk to. She really no longer wanted the caf, and did not want to hold it, so she set it down next to the wall before going in. Upon entering, she was greeted by a most pleasant sight.
In the center of the room, which was really quite large, Captain Rex was leading what she assumed was Torrent Company in some sort of hand-to-hand combat drill. They were in pairs, and it seemed to Goose that they were just thrashing at each other randomly. There had to be some sort of strategy behind it, but if there was, she could not see it.
After all, every single one of them was stripped to the waist, and covered in a sheen of sweat. Their skin was bronzed, and powerful muscles rippled with every movement. Such a masculine display made her want to roll her eyes, though it also made her feel a little giddy.
Among the sea of identical faces, and without the more defining parts of the armor, it was impossible to tell any of them apart. That is, with the exception of the Captain, who Goose had just realized was wearing some sort of ridiculous blue kilt-like thing that matched his armor. The other day, she hadn't noticed it because he was sitting down. Now that she saw it…it just looked silly.
She ended up staring openly as they grunted and punched at each other, a stupid grin stuck on her face. Undoubtedly, many of them would be embarrassed when they found out she'd watched them like this. It was not long before she started to giggle a bit because of the fun she was having. The Captain, who was nearest to who, noticed her presence first.
"What are you doing here?" the Captain asked plainly.
"I get lonely," Goose answered cheekily. "You know, being a social flarewing and all that."
They all seemed to be looking her over, and she suddenly became intensely aware that the front of her robe was wide open, and she was wearing a flimsy t-shirt and shorts in front of close to two hundred sweaty and very well-muscled men.
"You're out of uniform." He said next, though he sounded more confused than disapproving.
Goose took the opportunity to draw her robe closed, and she crossed her arms.
"Sorry, I tried sleeping in my uniform once, but all the medals made it just too uncomfortable." Goose deflected sarcastically, and couldn't help adding, "Nice man-skirt, by the way."
His entire expression changed from curious detachment to outright aggravation.
"It's a kama, not a skirt." He glowered.
"Sure it is." Goose replied, humoring him.
The Captain, however, was not amused.
"Dr. Gosling, you are disrupting this drill." he ground out, "If you would tell me what you want, I could help you."
Goose walked up to him in an exaggerated way, stroking her chin, as if deep in contemplation. Then she shrugged.
"To start off, I don't think we had a very good introduction." she smiled warmly and offered her hand, "Call me Goose."
He looked at her hand strangely, as if he didn't know exactly what he was expected to do. For a moment, Goose wondered if she should pull her hand back. However, he finally seemed to understand, and shook her hand firmly.
"Rex." he answered back. When they'd shaken hands, her robe had fallen open again. His eyes fell not on her body, but instead on the brace on her knee.
"What is that?" Rex asked, "Are you still recovering from some sort of injury?"
The brace was a sort of light gray color, and was more like a compression sleeve than anything else. It was very durable, yet thin enough that it could not be seen when something was worn over it.
"Oh, that? It's nothing." Goose laughed and waved dismissively, "Just an old reminder of my…wilder days. It acts up from time to time, but it won't be a problem."
Rex only nodded. By now, the clones assembled had begun to grow restless. Most of them had watched eagerly at the beginning, and barely stifled their laughter at Goose's remark about the kama, but many were getting bored.
"You still haven't said why you're here," he prompted her. "Ah, yes!" She grinned sheepishly, "I completely forgot." "
Clearly." Rex responded dryly.
Goose chose to disregard his last statement.
"Originally, I only wanted to know where the ship was going." she said simply.
Captain Rex gave a short, frustrated sigh. Though she had not known it, Goose had only needed to access a computer terminal to find out where they were traveling.
"The ship is headed to Christophsis to help break a blockade." he said evenly, "We will arrive in a quarter hour."
Goose smiled in appreciation. "Thank you ever so much," she said pleasantly. "I'll be seein' ya!"
Goose then turned around sharply, swooshing her robe like a cape as she did so, and strode self-importantly out the way she'd come in.
Somewhere in the back of the room, Jules nudged Coric in the ribs.
"She does like her dramatic exits, doesn't she?" he laughed.
Captain Rex barked out the order to resume the drill. Without warning, Coric grabbed Jules and flipped him onto the ground.
"Yes, she does indeed." Coric chuckled knowingly.
Once out in the hallway, Goose started toward her quarters to get dressed, only to turn back a minute later. She'd nearly forgotten her terribly disappointing mug of caf. Much as she'd have liked to ditch it there, it would have been too rude to leave it for the janitor droids to take care of. However, Goose was also very reluctant to go back to the mess hall and face the judgement of the serving droids, so she compromised with herself. She would take the mug with her, but not return it. What she'd do with the mug, she had yet to figure out.
Goose took her time going back to her room, mostly because she didn't relish changing back into her fatigues. They were functional, yes, and she'd washed all of them before going to bed last night. The thing was for her that she never really liked Regular Army people, and she hadn't ever gotten used to walking around looking like one. When she got to her room, Goose gladly dumped the caf in the sink. Then she grabbed one of her newly cleaned uniforms up off the floor from where she'd dumped them, and got dressed. While she was halfheartedly attempting to smooth down an unruly tuft of her short hair, Goose noticed the gentle throbbing of the deck had slowed down, meaning the ship was coming out of hyperspace.
Moments later, the whole ship shuddered as what Goose assumed was a turbolaser volley hit the ship's shields. Return fire from the ship's own cannons loudly followed immediately afterward. Having been reaching down for her boots at that instant, Goose was now sat in an undignified sprawl on the floor.
"Fripping horrible time for a space battle!" she grumbled to herself as she stood up again.
After having experienced more that her fair share of artillery bombardments on Virgillia, this was hardly new to Goose. She grudgingly started pulling her boots on, but quickened her pace when another direct shot rocked the ship. Her quarters were in the bowels of the ship, so there were no portholes for her to see the battle from, but Goose assumed that they were fighting the blockade Rex had mentioned. There was no cause for alarm, at least not yet, though she knew that there were bound to be a few casualties by now. Boots now tied, Goose hurried to the medbay.