#23 It's Going to be a Bumpy Ride
Goose's heart fluttered as the walker lifted off the hanger deck. Reflexively, she gripped the durasteel steps that served as her seat tighter as the craft angled downward and descended toward the planet below. There were no viewports in the troop compartment for her to see out of, so she could only guess as to how fast they were flying and how close they were to their target. It occurred to her that she didn't know what planet this was, let alone the battle plan.
Her stomach had only just begun to settle when the ship began to veer left and right erratically, making her lose her balance. It was only one she started hearing shells exploding around them that Goose realized the pilot was zigzagging to avoid anti-aircraft fire. If the troopers were afraid of being shot down, they didn't show it. In the dim, reddish lighting, they sat silently in neat rows of seats, blasters balanced between their knees.
The deck suddenly canted steeply sideways, slamming Goose's shoulder into a bulkhead none too gently. She glowered at the offending wall, but all thoughts of hurling a few choice insults at it fled from her mind when the resounding khoom! of an enemy shell erupted off the starboard side of the ship. Instinctively, she squeezed her eyes shut as the whole craft shuddered with a metallic groan, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest.
Warning klaxons began to sound off, and when Goose cracked an eyelid she saw that a few clones had started shifting in their seats and turning their heads warily. She whispered a quick prayer to whatever deity inhabited this world, asking that if she died, she at least not see it coming. The deck continued to rock dangerously, and for a long, horrifying moment she was utterly convinced the ship was going down.
After an interminable amount of time, the pilot of the landing craft regained control of the ship, setting it back on an even keel, although it continued to weave through the air unpredictably. Her teeth were clenched and her grip remained tight on her improvised seat even as she let out a tentative sigh of relief. Goose tried to emulate the troopers in the compartment with her in their outward calm, but her heart still hammered uncontrollably as the adrenaline refused to abate. That had been far too close
The remainder of the flight became progressively rougher, and towards the end Goose could hear what sounded like tree branches scraping against the bottom of the walker. She nearly whooped with joy when the walker finally set down heavily on the planet's surface and the landing ship released its docking clamps from the walker's hull. Her enthusiasm died a little when a voice, probably that of the departing transport ship pilot, crackled over the walker's comm system.
"Welcome to Teth, rock-jumpers!" he said just a little too cheerily.
Teth. Goose supposed that was this planet's name, and briefly thought it was odd this was the first time she was hearing it. Then she was once more distracted as the walker's servomotors whirred to life and the massive vehicle began to heave forward. She could hear the sounds of battle coming from outside, a myriad of explosions and the distinctive echo of blasterfire, but she had no way of knowing what was going on out there.
Then the walker's main cannon began to fire off loud, booming shots at whatever enemy target Goose couldn't see, almost drowning out all other sounds of the fighting. She almost didn't even want to know.
Soon after they landed, Goose had started to hear a peculiar clanging noise, and it took her a minute to realize it was the sound of enemy fire striking the walker's armor. Her stomach did a little somersault as she wavered between being glad the armor plating was thick enough to withstand the plasma and panicking that she was sitting inside of a very big, very slow-moving target. As always, the troopers in the compartment didn't seem to notice, and the walker moved onward with a steady cadence.
After what felt like an eternity of hearing muffled shouts and heart-stopping thuds against the hull, the AT-TE finally ground to a halt. Blaster bolts no longer hit the walker, so Goose assumed they had come under some sort of cover, because the servomotors had quieted down and she could clearly make out the continued exchange of blasterfire. She relaxed her death grip on the metal beneath her, having lost feeling in her fingers a few minutes ago.
A dishearteningly brief respite followed, then the AT-TE lurched back into motion. However, Goose was startled to find out that the walker was going up, not forward. The front segment of the walker bent upwards nearly ninety degrees, and she could hear walker's toe clamps sink into stone. Much to her growing unease, there was no artificial gravity in the troop compartment, and if she didn't find something to hold on to soon she was going to slide all the way down the aisle until she hit the rear hatch.
Seeing no other option, Goose climbed the narrow steps up into the cockpit, and got her first glimpse of Teth through the transparisteel canopy. The walker seemed to be scaling a near-vertical cliff, a sea of stone filling the view, framed above by a strip of hazy, purplish sky. In the periphery of her vision, she saw another AT-TE making the same dangerous ascent hers was, only about ten meters away.
What really had her attention, though, was the flurry of red enemy blaster bolts streaking down the cliff side at them, and the rocky crags offered virtually no cover whatsoever. Long vines grew along the cliff face, and she was startled to see clone troopers scattered among them, climbing up the precipice with the aid of their blasters' ascension cables. Goose gasped as a shot struck a nearby trooper in the chest, sending him plummeting to the ground like a rock, while his blaster twisted crazily in the air, ascension cable still attached to the ledge far above.
"This is karking insane," she whispered dazedly.
By then, the walker had made it a couple dozen feet up the cliff, and gravity was beginning to assert itself. Goose could feel herself starting to slip now that they were nearly vertical, and had to wedge her body into the small space behind the pilot to avoid falling nearly forty feet to the other end of the walker. From this vantage point, she could see just how hard it was to control the walker as it struggled up the steep rock wall.
An AT-TE was clearly not designed for this kind of climbing, and Goose cringed as she heard gears grinding as the pilot grappled with the steering yoke. If the driver had even noticed her squeezing in behind him, he was far too busy to care. Both enemy and Republic blasterfire flew back and forth through the air, creating a frenzy of light, sound, and flying dust and debris all around them. Throughout all of this, the walker kept up the uncomfortably fast pace of nearly 40 kilometers per hour.
Disbelief had settled over her as she watched the Republic forces perform this suicidal ascent, and it almost didn't occur to her that she was with them, and inside one of the biggest targets. It felt almost as if she was observing it from far away, as if it was all just a wild scene from an action holovid, and no one was in any real danger. This illusion was shattered, however, when the AT-TE next to hers was shot off the cliff.
Goose felt the shock wave from the enemy blast as it blew off the front of the walker, and she could only watch, transfixed, as it reared backward almost in slow motion and tumbled down the cliff, metal hull screeching as it plowed across stone. She tried to look away from the flaming wreck as it fell past her but couldn't, her heart in her mouth and palms suddenly slick with sweat. At least thirty men were aboard her walker; that meant an equal number had just died, because there was no way anyone could have survived the hundred foot fall.
When she finally managed to tear her eyes from the horror outside, Goose found that she'd started shivering almost uncontrollably even though the cockpit was growing uncomfortably warm from proximity to the walker's front laser turrets. She nearly jumped out of her skin when something landed with a thud on top of the cockpit's canopy, and she jerked her head up to see it was only Skywalker's new padawan.
Ahsoka stood on the transparisteel above them, green lightsaber drawn, batting away enemy blaster bolts that streaked down at the walker. After a moment, though, it was clear that the AT-TE pilot was having some trouble steering with the padawan in the way. Goose forgot her fear for a moment and gave an exasperated sigh. There was no way the driver could operate the walker if all he could see was up her skirt.
"Whose laserbrained idea was this, anyway?" Goose grumbled, although the only answer she received was a distracted grunt from the pilot.
Suddenly, the padawan shifted her attention to the left, and Goose followed her gaze to see a squadron of droid STAP fighters bearing down on the walker. She recognized them from the last few days of fighting on Christophsis, and it stopped her cold. Were they fighting the Separatists? Rex had made it sound like mercenaries or some other criminal scum had kidnapped the Hutt, but judging by the ferocity of this onslaught, she thought that to be unlikely in the extreme.
That train of thought was chased from her mind as the STAPs strafed the cliff face, and Goose saw white blurs plummeting in their wake. Before she realized what was happening, the STAPs were attacking the walker, and one of them blasted away a chunk of the cliff the walker's front foot had been grabbed onto, causing the leg's toe clamps to lose their grasp on the rock. Then the walker's other front foot lost its hold as well, and the whole AT-TE began to tip backward.
Terror gripped her, and Goose could only watch in speechless fear as the walker's legs struggled to regain purchase on the cliff, all the while horrified that they were going to end up exactly like the other AT-TE. She could only look on helplessly as Ahsoka was thrown off the cockpit, and adrenaline coursed through her as Goose herself was almost sent flying out of her makeshift seat. Through an enormous effort and after what seemed like hours, the pilot finally managed to anchor the walker's feet back in the cliff side.
Before she could feel any relief, however, another enemy shot exploded against the walker's left side, causing the unsteady craft to shudder and let out a metallic groan. The armor plating held, but one of the cockpit's consoles blew a fuse, and Goose could smell the acrid smoke of burning circuits as the overstretched pilot fought to control the walker. She was vaguely aware of Skywalker as he landed briefly on top of the cockpit before jumping off again, although she was much more preoccupied with putting out the small electrical fire.
After fumbling with the latch on the emergency locker beside her, she pulled out a cylinder of flame retardant and passed it to the pilot, who sprayed it carefully over his console and extinguished the fire. Goose swallowed shakily and let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding when the driver handed the flame retardant back to her with a thankful nod. Then, just as the pilot was trying to get the walker moving again, Ahsoka showed up again on top of the cockpit.
"Get this thing moving!" she shouted, banging a small fist against the transparisteel canopy.
While she was glad the padawan hadn't died, Goose felt a prickle of ire at the young Togruta's impatience. The pilot was doing the best he could, considering the extraordinary circumstances. In a moment, the AT-TE was climbing again, and she could see Skywalker zooming past, riding on a commandeered STAP, and clearing a path up the cliff. Ahead, she started to make out a platform, and realized they had almost reached the top.
She saw Ahsoka shifting around impatiently on top of the cockpit as the walker drew closer to the summit. Some troopers had already finished the climb, and Goose could see plumes of smoke and flying metal debris from the fight above them. Just as AT-TE began to make it over the lip of the platform, the padawan clambered off the cockpit and onto the walker's back, and soon after, the walker reached level ground.
In front of her, Goose could see a scattering of troopers fighting battle droids in a wide courtyard, and in the middle of them was Skywalker swinging his lightsaber, at the moment dismembering an unfortunate super battle droid. Suddenly, three droidekas rolled out and powered up their energy shields. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched Skywalker freeze up. Then, to her surprise, a massive blob of blue plasma thundered out of the walker's main cannon, obliterating the three destroyer droids.
Skywalker turned around, chest heaving, a slow grin spreading over his face. Then Goose saw Ahsoka hop down from on top of the walker, and realized she was probably responsible for the shot. With that, the sounds of battle faded away and were replaced by an almost unnerving silence. The AT-TE pilot guided the walker to a defensive position in the middle of the courtyard, then powered it down and lowered the boarding ramp.
Realizing that her wild ride was finally over, Goose let out a very long sigh of relief, and paused for a moment to slow down her still-hammering heart. With the adrenaline wearing off, her fingers were starting to feel tingly, although thankfully the uncontrollable shaking had stopped. She dislodged herself from her spot behind the pilot's seat, and before she started to head out through the troop compartment, clapped the pilot on the shoulder.
"Thanks for the ride," she said with genuine sincerity.
He replied with a nod. "Ma'am."
Goose dropped down into the troop compartment, and found that all the men had already disembarked. She strode purposefully down the deserted aisle, glad to have the blood moving in her legs again, and walked out the open hatch. Immediately, she was taken aback by the hot, moist, tree-smelling air and the oppressively overcast sky. Taking a quick look around, she saw that they now stood at the door of a monastery on sizable plateau surrounded on all sides by a dense, leafy jungle.
From the first moment of entering this planet's atmosphere Goose had decided she didn't like this place, but stepping outside had lowered her opinion of Teth even more. It stank of smoke and death and the overwhelming humidity left her skin feeling sticky. But that hardly mattered, because there were plenty of injured troopers to take care of after that senseless slaughter. She rushed over to where the wounded had gathered, and found that most of them had only minor or superficial wounds.
Initially that was encouraging, because it meant there would be no need for surgery; then Goose looked around, and saw that there were dishearteningly few troopers milling around the courtyard. In fact, she counted barely half of the full company, and for moment could not believe they had lost so many men on the ascent. It seemed anyone wounded too badly to hold on had fallen to their deaths, and she had to fight a sudden wave of anger. All of this was for one lowlife Hutt. It hardly seemed worth the price of so many lives.
With Coric's help, Goose managed to patch all the wounded relatively quickly. Meanwhile, the jedi and remaining troopers had been securing the plateau and preparing to enter the monastery. None of the troopers were injured too seriously, but she wanted to get them to a medbay as soon as possible all the same. Noticing Rex passing by, she stood and jogged to catch up with him.
"Rex," she called, and he turned to face her. "Those guys need a medevac. Do you think you can call in a gunship?"
He nodded, then pressed his fingers to the side of his helmet the way he always did when he was on the comm.
"Gunship is on its way," he replied a few moments later, a twinge of anguish in his voice. "Should be no more than twenty minutes."
"Thanks, Rex," Goose sighed tiredly. Exhaustion was catching up to her again, and she hoped this would not take much longer. Rex seemed worn out as well, and she could only imagine how he was feeling after almost a half of his men were killed in one fell swoop.
He gestured to the monastery. "We're ready to start looking for the Hutt. This is where you come in, Doctor."
"Okay," she said reluctantly, and followed him toward the main doors. The ground was strewn with the blasted remnants of battle droids, and the paving stones were slick with machine oil and hydraulic fluids mingling with patches of blood. Goose asked slowly, "These were Seps, right? Not mercenaries."
"Yeah," Rex answered bitterly, "it's got Dooku's fingerprints all over it."
The name Dooku sounded familiar, but Goose couldn't recall where she's heard it before. She never had the chance to ask, either, because they'd arrived in front of the massive armored monastery door. Gathered around it were the two jedi and a squad of troopers, and they waited as a clone worked on disengaging the lock. Coric jogged up to join them, taking a defensive position next to her. She wouldn't have been surprised if Rex had asked him to keep an eye on her.
They stood in tense silence as the door opened upward with an ominous rumble reminiscent of a bantha's gut, and the cool air that escaped carried a cloying scent of decay. The group edged in cautiously, and it suddenly occurred to her that they had absolutely no idea what they were getting themselves into. Inside the monastery it was inky black, and the dim light from outside reached no more than a few feet past the door.
As they moved in, sweeping their blasters over every dark corner, the troopers also turned on their helmet spot lamps, and Goose could make out the big entryway with better detail. Mildew and creepers grew on the damp walls, although it was still too dark to see into the deep shadows that she supposed were alcoves cut into the stone. She wasn't sure, but she could have sworn she saw something skitter away when some light passed over it.
"I don't like this place," Coric muttered, "It gives me the creeps."
Goose agreed wholeheartedly and considered asking to wait by the door, but decided to suck it up and ignore the chill that ran down her spine. She knew it was only natural, but this place gave her a very bad feeling.
"Anything that moves that isn't a Hutt, shoot it." Rex said from ahead. "No chances."
"Really?" Goose muttered to herself, "That seems a little harsh."
It hadn't been her intention for anyone to hear that, but it seemed Coric had anyway.
"Not too harsh at all, Goose," he said with an edge to his voice. "In hostage extraction you don't have the luxury of checking IDs, because if you don't shoot them they'll shoot you."
She shot him a sidelong glance. "So…if my elderly grandma happened to appear at the end of this hallway and waved her knitting needles at you threateningly, you would shoot her?"
"Probably," he answered without hesitation.
Goose replied sarcastically, "Then I guess it's a good thing my grandma doesn't knit."
He laughed lightly at that, but did not let his vigilance slip. Ahead of her, Goose heard the jedi talking about the B'omar monks who used to own this place, but she largely ignored it as she peered into the shadows for any clues as to the Hutt's location. Suddenly, one of the trooper's spot lamps passed over something metallic, and all the troopers instantly trained their rifles on it as Skywalker drew his lightsaber.
Contrary to what they'd said about shooting first and asking questions later, they'd all held fire when they saw it was an ordinary droid and not some Sep clanker. Goose had still let out a small squeak of fear when she's first seen it, however, having mistaken it for yet another battle droid. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice it, since all eyes were on Skywalker as he demanded it tell him who it was while waving his lightsaber in its faceplate.
The droid identified itself as the monastery's caretaker, and after that Goose stopped really paying attention to the exchange between Skywalker and the droid. With the danger seemingly past, she felt her unease slip away to be replaced by acute fatigue. She almost missed the part when the droid told Skywalker about the dungeons in the cellar because she was so busy trying to stifle a yawn. Hearing the word dungeon woke her up a little, but she relaxed again when it seemed she would not be going along.
In the end, only the two jedi were to venture down into the monastery's cellar, and the rest of them would stay above and secure the entrance. Goose had no objections, since the last thing she wanted to do was wander around blindly in a dank, unlit cellar, but she couldn't shake a feeling of trepidation as she watched Skywalker and Ahsoka vanish into the gloom at the end if the long hallway. She hoped they'd be quick, so they could just get off Teth already.
Once the jedi had gone, Goose and the squad of troopers returned to the courtyard, and she hung around the entrance to the monastery so she wouldn't be far when they needed her to take a look at the Hutt. She felt a tingle of fear at the possibility that the Hutt really was sick, and fervently hoped that her being there was just an extra precaution. Something seemed to be bothering Coric, if the way he kept looking back the way the jedi had gone was any indication, and she had to admit she felt the same way.
"The general knows he's walking into trouble, doesn't he?" Coric finally said aloud.
"Yes," Rex replied simply as he scanned the activity in the courtyard for the umpteenth time.
Coric didn't seem satisfied, and he continued to pace around. "I have this nagging feeling we ought to be down there with him."
"Don't worry, Coric," Rex said after a pause, and Goose could sense a grin on his face even though he still wore his helmet. "If the general comes back with any broken bones…they won't be his."
A/N: Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Please don't forget to review!