#24 Outrageous Misfortune
Time crawled by slowly as Goose and the troopers waited for the jedi to return. It could not have been more than ten minutes, but the tension among the men had grown palpable as the silence stretched on uncomfortably in the thick atmosphere. At first she had tried to doze off and rest a bit to relieve some of her exhaustion, but she soon picked up on the troopers' unease as she saw them glancing warily at the sky above and jungle below.
They seemed to be expecting trouble, and considering that they were in the midst of some Separatist plot, it seemed likely they would encounter some eventually. There was no telling what the Seps had in store for them, and Goose really didn't want any more surprises. After that, she had made sure to stay as alert as the rest of them.
When the jedi finally did return, she heard them coming long before she saw them. The sound began as a faint sobbing, but grew into a loud, piercing wailing as it grew nearer. That noise certainly couldn't have been coming from either of the jedi, so it had to be the Hutt. Goose could feel a chill settle over her despite the steamy heat as she registered the unmistakable shrieks of a crying infant. Why in the nine Corellian hells hadn't anyone told her the Hutt was going to be a baby?
She'd been expecting an adolescent at the very least, but now there was no denying that her newest responsibility was to be a young Huttlet. Her job would have been hard even if the Hutt had been older, but now things were taking a turn for the impossible. Babies of all species are tricky to take care of, and Goose was certain an infant Hutt would be no exception. At this point, all she could do was hope the universe would be kind to her, for once.
The high-pitched cries drew nearer, and Goose reluctantly headed toward them. Perhaps it wasn't sick at all, and it was just crying because it was…hungry? If it had enough energy to make that much fuss, it couldn't be that bad off, could it? The two jedi emerged from the long shadows, and she could just make out a small form squirming in Ahsoka's arms. As they stepped closer, she could see that the Huttlet was not much bigger than a bolo ball.
It must have been heavier than it looked, however, because it seemed like Ahsoka was straining under its weight as she attempted to soothe it. A wave of putrid, ammonia-scented stench assailed Goose's nostrils as she neared the Huttlet, and she began to wonder how Ahsoka managed to hold it without gagging. The Hutt was giving off a gnarly bad smell, and Ahsoka was cuddling it. That was going above and beyond the call of duty, in her book.
Skywalker's face betrayed nothing but disgust for the rank-smelling Hutt, and he vanished to talk to Rex without a word as soon as he saw Goose coming near. Ahsoka actually managed to show some sort of genuine concern for the wailing Huttlet as she gently settled it on the ground for Goose to examine it. Taking only shallow breaths, Goose knelt down next to the padawan and started to look the Huttlet over.
"I think this little guy is sick," Ahsoka said apprehensively as she stroked the stinky infant.
Goose fought a grimace as the smell made her stomach churn a bit, and she wondered how Ahsoka could stand the terrible odor. The more she looked at the Huttlet, however, she could see that the young padawan was right. Goose wasn't entirely sure how a Hutt was supposed to smell, but in looking over the files of numerous gastropodal species, she'd learned that gastropods tend to excrete especially noxious compounds when they were ill.
Couple the overwhelming stink with the Huttlet's glassy eyes and incessant wailing, and Goose had to agree there was something wrong with it. However, she was woefully lacking in resources to diagnose the ailing Hutt.
"I thinks so too," Goose replied at length. "Trouble is, I don't know what he has."
Ahsoka's eyes widened. "You can help him, right?"
She only grunted back noncommittally, then tugged on some gloves and felt the Huttlet's slimy skin. The GASSH file had said that Hutt body temperature never exceeded around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but the Huttlet seemed much warmer than that. Based on what little information she had, Goose could only conclude that the Huttlet had a fever.
Skywalker returned from conferring with Rex, and looked down at them impatiently. "Well, Doctor?"
"The Huttlet has a fever," Goose replied flatly, stripping off her gloves. "I don't know how serious it is, but the sooner we get him to a medbay, the better."
He nodded curtly. "A gunship should be arriving soon to pick up the wounded. He can go up with them."
Goose stood and backed away from the pungent Hutt, glad she wouldn't have to keep touching it. Ahsoka gathered the Huttlet up in her arms again, although Goose wasn't sure why she would do so willingly. Not only did it reek, that wrinkly green slug was more or less solid muscle. It had to be heavy. Skywalker also watched her pick up the Huttlet, and there was no mistaking the loathing in his eyes directed at the nauseating bundle of joy.
"Ahsoka, put that slug in a backpack," he ordered, unable to keep the revulsion out of his voice. "You'll be spending a week in the 'fresher scrubbing the stench off yourself as it is."
His padawan huffed a little in response, but obeyed and asked a trooper for a backpack. Almost affectionately, Ahsoka placed the still-flailing, screaming, and unpleasantly smelly Huttlet into the proffered pack, and smiled at it as if it were an adorable felinx kit and not a squalling slug. Then she picked up the laden backpack and put it on backwards, so the baby Hutt would sit just a few inches from her face. Goose couldn't imagine why she would ever keep it that close to her nose.
Had she not known Togrutans have excellent olfactory senses, Goose would've guessed the padawan didn't have a sense of smell.
"I don't think Skyguy likes little Stinky over here very much," Ahsoka sighed once Skywalker had passed out of earshot.
"Stinky?" Goose chuckled, "It's hardly a misnomer. I mean, what does a Hutt use as an air freshener? A decomposing nerf?"
Her joke fell flat and Ahsoka sent her a sharp look, apparently having become very attached to the Huttlet in the past ten minutes. Sensing a retort, Goose mumbled something about checking on the wounded and made a hasty exit, relieved to be free from both the overpowering smell and the padawan's accusatory stare. She made her way over to Coric, who was standing near the wounded, so it would not look like she had been lying.
"Hey, Goose," Coric greeted amicably when she reached him. "Can you believe the smell coming off of that Hutt? It's kriffing honking!"
She smiled at his colorful language. "Yeah, I hope we stow him in the cargo bay. I haven't smelled anything that bad since med school, when we did an autopsy on a Herglic who was too big to fit inside any of the refrig units. After a day or so, well…phew."
"Ugh," said Coric, amused. "I just can't imagine how the commander can stand to hold that Hutt for so long. Even with helmet filters, I wouldn't want to stand downwind of that thing."
Goose laughed in response, and the two of them lapsed into silence. The tension in the courtyard remained, but it had dissipated somewhat as they began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. With the Huttlet in hand, all they had to do was wait for transportation off-world. Then it would be over, and Goose would finally be able to have some peace and quiet after so many weeks of nonstop fighting.
Leaning against one of the many vine-covered columns in the courtyard, Goose began to relax and daydream about collapsing into her bunk back on the Resolute. She envisioned clean sheets, hot showers, steaming mugs of caf, and a full night's uninterrupted sleep on a real bed. Her reverie, unfortunately, ended abruptly when Ahsoka came up to her with a troubled look that didn't suit such a youthful face.
"I think something's wrong with Stinky," the padawan said with a note of desperation. "He stopped crying, and just, well…look at him. He's turning every shade of green except the one he's supposed to be, and just listen to these awful noises he's making."
As she talked, the Huttlet gurgled weakly and made a strangled wheezing sound, its tongue lolling out of its slack mouth. Goose had to admit, its condition had deteriorated significantly in the past few minutes. She muttered a few choice curses under her breath, mentally berating herself for messing up the one job she had been brought to do. If this Huttlet died from this fever, it would be her fault and hers alone.
"Honestly, there isn't much I can do," Goose finally said. "I'll have more resources in the medbay, but even then I might accidentally poison him. Hutts aren't supposed to get sick."
Ahsoka's expression was of round-eyed disappointment. "If Stinky dies, it won't just be Jabba who'll go against the Republic, the rest of the Hutt cartels will join the Separatists too! Isn't there anything you can do?"
Goose began to say no, but then she heard the whine of an approaching gunship's engine. This was it. In a few minutes, they'd be safely aboard the Resolute.
"Look!" she grinned with a growing feeling of elation. "Once the gunship brings us to the ship, I can use the medbay's bioscanners to find out wh…"
She trailed off as she realized something was wrong. Goose could see the LAAT/i gunship as it descended through the thick cloud cover, and noticed it was weaving through the air the same way her landing ship had when it was avoiding enemy fire. Then, in the still air, she heard the droning sound of the engines of many, many more ships.
Skywalker was suddenly running past her, yelling into his comlink, "Gunship, abort! I repeat, do not land! Separatist ships closing in! Abo–"
All hell broke loose when the gunship's rear exploded into a ball of flame, and the doomed craft broke apart in midair, sending red-hot, twisted durasteel hurtling at the troopers in the courtyard below. Frozen to the spot, Goose could only watch in openmouthed horror as her hope for salvation rained down in flaming chunks of destruction. A heartbeat later, a squadron of Separatist vulture droids pierced the dense clouds, followed close behind by a massive droid landing ship.
Then she saw the chaos around her as the clone troopers reacted immediately, racing to set up defensive positions and repel the Separatist onslaught. Goose jumped back to reality, and knew she had to get the wounded out of their exposed position and into better cover. She ran as quickly as her feet could carry her through the already rubble-strewn colonnade, mindless of the crossfire that had erupted between the troopers and the vulture droids as they strafed the courtyard.
As she ran, a brilliant red bolt of plasma punched into a column no more than five feet in front of her, shattering it and sending up a thick plume of debris. Goose dove to the ground, heart thudding so hard she heard it in her ears. Small bits of masonry peppered her back and she was nearly choked by dust, but she coughed it out and rose to her feet once it had settled. When she stood, she saw what had demolished the column.
Several spider droids, essentially turbolasers on legs, were streaming into the courtyard, spitting plasma at anything that moved. Beyond them she saw that the troop ship had already landed, and rank upon rank of skeletal-faced battle droids poured out of it. Goose's breath caught for only a moment, then she continued her mad dash toward the wounded, who in true trooper form had picked up their blasters and started firing back.
"We'll be overrun any minute," she shouted once she'd slid behind cover with them. "How many of you can walk?"
A trooper next to her began to answer, but his voice was drowned out as a vulture droid screamed by overhead, barely twenty feet away. The rush of air from the fighter's slipstream nearly blew her off her feet, and Goose looked up to see the vulture fire point-blank into the vulnerable concertina joint between the AT-TE's fore and aft sections. The walker was instantly engulfed in flames, and it collapsed to the ground as its legs buckled underneath it.
She felt a pang as the craft that had carried her up the deadly cliff side was destroyed, but she didn't dwell on it for long. Without the AT-TE's turbolasers laying down suppressing fire, the troopers had no choice but to give ground as more and more battle droids flooded the courtyard. Goose didn't bother asking her question again, and in a blind rush of adrenaline she helped a trooper who had been shot in the leg to stand, then slung his arm over her shoulders and ran toward the doors of the monastery as fast as she was able.
The rest of the Republic troops had started to fall back now, as the swarms of droids overwhelmed their ability to defend such an open courtyard. All she saw was the entrance to the monastery before her as a sort of tunnel vision set in and instinct took over. Goose barely even registered a vulture droid that strafed the retreating troopers, ripping up ancient flagstones and clones alike, scattering shards of stone as deadly as shrapnel.
In her state, Goose didn't notice that many of the wounded men who followed behind her were cut down by the ruthless blasterfire from the multitudes of battle droids that closed in on them from seemingly every direction. Her sole focus was in getting the trooper she was supporting inside the monastery, and by some miracle she managed not to trip on the broken masonry, dead troopers, and blasted droid parts that littered the ground.
With a flood of relief she stepped into the cool darkness of the monastery, and deposited her burden in the safety of an alcove. Suddenly without purpose, Goose stood and looked back out at the courtyard, for an insane moment thinking she might go out again in search of wounded troopers. Her heart skipped a beat and she could only stand there, transfixed by fear, as she was confronted by a veritable wall of battle droids.
The droids marched forward through plumes of acrid black smoke and burning debris, shooting with the cruel, unfeeling coldness only machines had. Stupidly, Goose stood rooted to the spot, unable to tear her eyes from the nightmarish spectacle before her. Coric, recognizable through the haze only by the blue stripes on his armor, skidded to a crouch beside her and slammed his hand down on her raised head just moments before a laser bolt punched into the wall behind where her face had just been.
"Keep your kriffing head down!" he shouted at her as he shoved her into an alcove.
"Can do," she managed to gasp, and was unable to suppress a shudder as she saw the still-smoking pit mark in the wall.
It was clear there was nothing she could do. The troopers around her were fighting for their lives, and if she so much as moved she'd probably either get in their way or get herself shot. A dark shadow began to descend across the twilight of the hall, and Goose realized the massive monastery door was starting to close. Finally. She looked around and saw troopers firing madly at the sea of droids, and on the other side of the hall sat Ahsoka, curled up around the Huttlet, sheltering it with her body.
Then fear jolted through her as she realized she didn't see Skywalker and his glowing blue lightsaber anywhere, and hadn't seen him since the shooting started. Her adrenaline-soaked brain failed to comprehend how he, who always seemed to be able to tiptoe through an enemy fusillade with hardly a scratch, could have been gunned down. Goose could hear the door's ancient gears grinding as it lowered, sparking the vision that they'd be left with the young, frightened jedi commander in charge to flash through her mind.
Her momentary panic proved to be unfounded when, at the last possible moment, Skywalker slid through the narrow gap between the door and ground, dragging an unconscious trooper behind him. Goose could not quite name the emotion she felt as she saw their general still alive, but its closest relative was relief. Then the massive door fell shut with a deep, ominous thud, plunging the inside of the monastery into inky blackness.
A/N: Hey everyone! This may be the last time I update for a while, because I'm going to Spain! Please don't forget to review!