#25 No Escape

For a moment, all was quiet, and the tense stillness was disturbed only by the soft clacking of plastoid armor and the faint sounds of droids massing on the other side of the door. Then one by one, the troopers' helmet spot lamps flickered to life, their white beams of light cutting sharply through the darkness. Looking around, Goose counted perhaps only forty such points of light, all that was left of a company of one hundred forty-four.

"Rex, how many casualties?" Skywalker asked, the first to break the deathly silence, his voice echoing strangely in the large, hushed chamber.

"Forty-two men remaining, sir," came the captain's clipped, obviously pained reply. "Nine walking wounded, one seriously injured and immobile."

She could feel her entire body shivering as she sat there in shocked numbness. In less than an hour, three-quarters of Torrent Company, over a hundred men, had died on this miserable planet. And now an innumerable army of droids stood just outside the monastery door. Who knew how long it would be before they blasted their way through or found a way around the primitive lock? With ten men incapacitated, they didn't stand a chance.

Even if there was a way out, there were too many Separatist fighters in the air for gunships to break through and pick them up. Also, that was assuming they lived long enough to actually call for help. In all likelihood, the droids had jammed all comm frequencies the moment they started their attack, and communications with the Resolute were completely cut off. For all intents and purposes, they were trapped.

But she knew she still had to help the wounded, so Goose forced herself to her feet, walking unsteadily to the prone form of the trooper Skywalker had dragged in with him at the last second. Coric was already beside him, pulling off cracked and blackened plates of armor from the trooper's bloodied chest and right shoulder. She saw the yellow markings on the clone's helmet as she knelt down, and could not suppress a gasp as she realized it was none other than the AT-TE pilot.

Only half an hour ago she'd been wedged into the cockpit behind him, fearing a long fall and a fiery crash. Now he lay on the dusty monastery floor, his body mangled from the explosion that had devastated his walker. Goose didn't waste a moment, pulling on gloves before clamping off spurting arteries at a frenzied pace in a bid to control the bleeding. Coric put in a plasma line to help replace his blood volume, but the pilot was fading fast.

Goose cursed under her breath, barely able to see what she was doing because there was so much blood everywhere. Shrapnel had gone so deeply into his chest his ribs were exposed in places, and there was just no way she could stop the bleeding fast enough. She and Coric desperately worked to stabilize him, but they were fighting a losing battle. He would bleed out no matter what they did, even if they'd had the finest equipment in the galaxy.

They kept trying, and although it felt like for an hour that she alternated between applying pressure and fixing clamps on bleeders, it was probably only a few minutes before the pilot's heart gave out. Coric felt for a pulse, then drew back, shaking his head. Goose knew what it meant, but stared back with blank incomprehension, unwilling to accept another death. A sudden rage filled her, rising so quickly she lost what was left of her control.

"Fek!" she shouted, hurling the hemostat in her hand at the monastery door. It hit with a hollow clang. "Kark this fripping planet, and skrag the Hutts!"

She didn't have to look around to know that everyone had heard that. Sound carried far in the subdued atmosphere. Her outburst had been utterly inappropriate, but she was beyond caring at this point. Goose was shaking again, and this time it wasn't from fear. If she hadn't suddenly felt so incredibly exhausted, she might have continued to scream her fury at this senseless killing. And it wasn't as if any of the droids the clones had destroyed had even died.

The coppery smell of blood suddenly pervaded her nostrils, and her breaths came in shorter gasps as a wave of nausea passed through her. Goose stood up jerkily, her vision blurring and heart beating a quick staccato rhythm. She could feel bile rising in her throat, and through sheer force of will alone managed to keep it down. Leaning against a cool stone pillar a few feet away, she took deep, sobbing breaths and tried to regain her composure.

It was hard. Goose had felt helpless before, many times. But never, never in all her experience had she felt such complete, overwhelming frustration at her impotence. Troopers were dying all around her, and so far she'd been of no use whatsoever. It was almost enough to drive her mad.

Several minutes later, she finally looked up at what was going on around her. Troopers had broken out into feverish activity, and every able-bodied clone was working to barricade the door and set up booby traps and defensive positions. In the middle of the hall stood Rex and the two jedi, conferring in hushed tones, probably trying to figure a way out of this mess. At the far end of the room, Goose could see Coric setting up a first aid position in the shelter of a deep alcove.

Her anger had passed, leaving her feeling like a deflated balloon. Goose looked to where the AT-TE pilot's body had been, but it was gone, only a small blood smear to mark where he had been. She couldn't remember him being moved. Resentment bubbled up again in her again when she saw her hands, red up to the wrists in his blood, and she bitterly stripped the gloves off and threw them to the ground. She hadn't even known his name.

Goose walked slowly toward the first aid position, intending to help Coric with patching up the wounded. In her absent-minded state, she didn't notice that Skywalker had started talking to her until Rex reached out and grabbed her arm gently.

"Doctor, Ahsoka and I have decided to try to find another exit and escape with the Huttlet," Skywalker began again. "Rex and his men are staying behind. You'll be coming with us…"

He kept talking, saying something about taking care of the sick Huttlet, but she had stopped listening. All her mind could register was that he was just abandoning his troops. After everything that had happened, he was going to leave them all to die, and only bother to save two women and a baby? Goose felt that old fury building up again, and was suddenly swept by a wave of loyalty toward Rex and his men. She'd be damned if Skywalker forced her to abandon them with him.

"I'm staying," she cut him off softly. "I belong here, helping with the wounded. There isn't much I can do for the Huttlet anyway."

Skywalker looked surprised, and she couldn't blame him. He'd been offering her a chance for survival in the face of certain death, and she'd refused. For some reason, it didn't really feel to her like she'd just given up her only chance at life. Somehow, it hadn't fully dawned on her that she might be dying soon. Skywalker's expression hardened, and Goose realized for the first time just how haggard he looked.

"Doctor, there is no way that this will end well," he said lowly, so the troopers moving past wouldn't hear. To his credit, his voice sounded heavy with remorse.

Goose sighed tiredly. "Skywalker, I'm staying."

He probably thought she was insane, and didn't bother arguing with her after that. She turned to leave, but noticed Ahsoka standing rigidly in terrified silence, clutching the Huttlet tightly to her chest. Deciding that it couldn't possibly do any harm and would probably give the poor padawan some peace of mind, Goose dug into her medkit and pulled out a hypospray of acetaminophen. She dialed down the dosage to only sixty milligrams, guessing how much the Huttlet would need.

"I won't promise anything, but with any luck this might help bring down the fever," Goose said as reassuringly as she could.

Then she unceremoniously injected the Huttlet, feeling only a slight bit of sympathy for it as it began its crying anew. What reason did she have to feel bad for it? One hundred men had already died for that Hutt, and forty more were soon to follow.

Rex gave Skywalker an almost brotherly pat on the shoulder, and the general returned the gesture without hesitation. It occurred to Goose that Skywalker genuinely felt bad for leaving. She also understood how important it was that the Huttlet make it out safely, but she just couldn't bring herself to forgive him for abandoning his men. Despite that, she still found herself feeling a pang of regret as she watched the two jedi recede into the gloom.

Her head spun a little bit as she continued on her way to the first aid position. She vaguely remembered Rex saying there were only nine walking wounded, and her stomach knotted as she realized that meant that most of the fifteen wounded men she'd tried to get out of the courtyard and into the monastery hadn't made it. There really wasn't much reason for her to be here anymore, anyway. Sooner or later, the droids would break through, and that would be it for everybody.

Mechanically, she knelt down beside the closest wounded man and started to patch him up. She worked quickly, methodically, and was already on her second patient when the droids started cutting the door. It started out as a low whine, but grew into a loud buzzing that carried across the room. Her heart nearly stopped when she identified the sound, and like everyone else her eyes were immediately drawn to the door.

At the very bottom edge of the door was a small spot that started to glow orange, then red. Goose continued to watch, transfixed, and the molten spot expanded slowly upward as the droids moved the laser torch. A cold feeling settled in the pit of her stomach as she watched it, even though she realized it would still be some time until they broke through. The ancient monastery door, though rusted, was made of a strong, thick metal that would be difficult for the cutters to melt through.

With great effort, she tore her gaze from the door and continued bandaging the wounded man's leg in stoic silence. The buzzing sound was impossible to ignore, however. Once she was finished with the last of the wounded, there was nothing more for her to do but sit and listen. The wounded had gone to join their brothers once they'd been fixed up, and Coric had left her too, after telling her to stay there and not move a muscle.

Nobody spoke, at least not with their helmet's external audio on, and she was left alone with her thoughts. Admittedly, her mind was all over the place. She'd always imagined it would be terrifying to know she would die soon, but somehow she had stopped feeling scared. All she really felt was tired and a little empty. Goose had also assumed she would think about home or miss her family, but as her thoughts chased each other around in circles she found that she'd utterly forgotten the name of the street she'd lived on as a child.

By that point, there was a five and a half foot vertical scar cooling in the door, and a horizontal one was forming at a right angle to the first. The cuts weren't very wide, but some sunlight filtered through them, making the prospect of being overrun seem all the more real. Although it seemed like they were cutting through at an alarmingly fast rate, it had really been close to a half hour since they started. Goose's legs were beginning to cramp up after crouching down for so long.

She wondered why the Separatists had chosen to use such a slow method to get in when all they really had to do was lay some explosives and blow the door right off. Eventually, she decided that they were probably afraid the Huttlet was still with them, and an explosion might accidentally bury it under twenty feet of rubble. It made no difference to her what reason they had, though. As long as it gave the jedi some more time.

After a while, Goose started to wish that Jules was there to keep her company. It was a selfish thought, she knew, because Jules was safely aboard the Resolute, probably still asleep in the medbay. But she'd gotten used to him being around after all that time together on Christophsis, and couldn't help but feel that things would be better if he was there. Nevertheless, she was happy that at least one member of Torrent Company would survive.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the cutting sound suddenly ended. It had already been uncomfortably quiet, but without the constant droning in the background, the silence was even more unnerving. She saw the troopers tense up and train their rifles on the door, even though the cut hadn't been finished, and there was no way the droids could get through. For whatever reason, the droids had just…stopped.

On the other side of the door, Goose could hear a voice, not coming from a droid, shouting orders. It was too indistinct to make out what it was saying, but oddly enough, it sounded…feminine. She didn't know what was happening, and didn't believe there was any way the droids could get in with only two cuts in the door. Regardless, the troopers seemed to think something was coming, so she squeezed herself as deeply into the alcove as she was able.

It was a good thing she did, because in the next moment, all hell broke loose. She wasn't sure how it happened, only that the monastery door was suddenly open, and every trooper had started shooting for all he was worth. Goose couldn't see much of the battle from where she hid, but it was loud. There was explosion after explosion, and in the enclosed space every last one of them was magnified, and the whole building was wracked by the shock waves.

Despite her restricted view, Goose could see a solid wall of sand-colored battle droids pour into the entryway, followed by ranks of spider droids and towering dark super battle droids, all spewing red blasterfire as they moved relentlessly down the passage. Although she hid in the back, she could still feel the warmth of the battle as laser cannons superheated the air and the atmosphere grew thick with smoke from half a dozen different explosions.

Then the smoke obscured almost everything, and it was difficult to make out what was going on anymore. What she did see was that it had turned into dirty, close-quarters combat. One clone, having shot a battle droid at point-blank range, was killed as a shard of metal flew from the blasted automaton and slashed through his throat, lodging in one of his cervical vertebrae and nearly taking his head off completely. The troopers stood their ground, but it didn't matter. The droids just rolled right over them.

Everything was happening so fast. It all moved in such a blur that before she even realized it, the battle was over. The clones had stopped shooting, but the droids were still coming. Her mind turned so slowly she didn't immediately realize that the troopers had stopped shooting only because all of them were dead. Or close to dead, at the very least. Then her mind jumped to the most obvious conclusion. She would be next.

Her mouth suddenly went dry. She hadn't felt any true emotion, only horrified disbelief, as she'd watched the clones be slaughtered. But now, only now that the droids were coming for her, did Goose feel true fear. And she also felt shame. Why had she felt nothing when they died?

But that didn't matter, because the droids were upon her. In fact, they trooped on past her, deeper into the monastery. For a desperately hopeful moment, she thought that maybe, just maybe, they would pass her by if she stayed quiet enough. And it seemed to work. None so much as turned a faceplate in her direction as they marched on by in a perfect column. In total, Goose estimated at least a hundred battle droids had passed her by, accompanied by a few dozen super battle droids and a handful of spider droids.

Just as quickly as they had burst in, the droids were gone, the sound of their eerily synchronized footsteps fading away as they continued into the monastery. Foolishly – stupidly, in fact – Goose assumed that they had all gone, and she stood up in a daze, unsure of what her next move should be. If all of them were dead, then she was well and truly alone, no matter where the jedi were. She hesitantly began to step out of her alcove, but froze as if dipped in liquid nitrogen when she suddenly heard a voice.

It was the same female-sounding voice she'd heard shouting orders from the other side of the door, only now it came from no more than twenty feet away from where she stood. Panic shot through her, and Goose instinctively jerked backward, mentally cursing her idiocy while pressing herself as far back into the alcove as she could. As she did so, however, her boot scraped against some rubble at her feet, sending a stray pebble skittering out into the hall.

To her adrenaline-enhanced senses, the faint sound was almost painfully loud. It was clear that the Separatist had heard it too, because the voice had trailed off, leaving behind a palpable silence.

"Well, what have we here?" the voice said silkily, although it had a harsh edge to it. "It seems Skywalker didn't just leave his men to die…he abandoned a woman too."

Goose's heart pounded in her chest so quickly she couldn't tell one beat from the other. How could the owner of the voice, the Sep commander, possibly have known that? But it hardly mattered to her racing mind, because before she could comprehend it two battle droids had materialized out of the gloom, dragging her brusquely out of the shadows and halfway down the debris-littered chamber until she stood before their leader.

In front of her was a pale, gaunt-looking woman with a shaven head, dressed in a black cloak with its hood pulled up. Her eyes were unconsciously drawn to the dark tattoos coming from the corners of her mouth, reminding her unpleasantly of blood trailing down a carnivore's jaws after a kill. Goose might never have considered such a skeletal woman dangerous, if not for the cruel sneer that twisted her features, and the cold, predatory glint in her eyes.

"So, a medic," the woman said almost conversationally. "And here I was, under the impression the Republic was only in the habit of throwing away the lives of clones. How strange."

She now stood with her hands on her hips, piercing eyes boring into Goose as if trying to read her thoughts. Whether it was intentional or not, her dark cloak fell back to reveal twin curved, wicked-looking lightsaber hilts clipped to her waist. Goose felt her knees begin to weaken, and wondered if she could see her trembling, or even sense her fear. Clearly she was not a jedi, but…something similar, then?

"But enough talk," she continued impatiently. "Where is Skywalker?"

Goose swallowed hard. It had only just dawned on her that she was being interrogated. Although she seemed calm, the Separatist commander radiated malice, and after seeing so many troopers killed it was no far stretch of the imagination to think this woman was capable of torture. Still, Goose wasn't about to give her any useful information. Not that she actually knew anything relevant. No amount of torture could extract knowledge she didn't have in the first place.

"Forget it," Goose finally said, surprising even herself with the defiant note in her voice. Only the tremor in her speech gave away her fear. "I'm a doctor, not a traitor. I have nothing to say to you."

The enemy's disturbingly blue eyes narrowed in irritation, her whole face distorting into an expression of disgust. "I would have expected as much from one of those mindless clones, but what loyalty do you owe that jedi scum? He doesn't care whether you live or die. The jedi don't care about anyone, especially not their army of slaves. Skywalker may as well have killed all of you with his own hand by leaving you behind, just to save his sorry skin."

She listened as the woman ranted on, and was shocked to find a small part of her brain agreeing with what she said. Her thoughts became clouded and hazy, but the point was simple. Skywalker had left them, left all of them. He'd run off, abandoned everybody. He'd led them there in the first place. What would it matter if she told where he was? It was all his fault this happened, his fault they were dead…

No.

That wasn't right. Goose had seen the regret in his eyes. Skywalker had left because he'd had to. A lot was at stake here. She knew the woman was lying, so why did it feel…so uncomfortably true?

The Sep lady. She had to be using some kind of jedi mind trick to manipulate her thoughts, even if she wasn't a jedi.

Yes.

Mindless clones. Army of slaves. Goose looked at the mangled, bloody, broken bodies of troopers that littered the ground. And they were all dead. Every last one.

Her mind started to clear. The only person to blame was standing right there in front of her.

"No. Skywalker didn't kill those men. You did," Goose said heatedly, her fear receding to be replaced by a smoldering anger. "The Corellians believe in nine hells, and I bet they've got a special place reserved for you in the deepest, darkest–"

She never had the chance to finish that sentence. Before she knew what was happening, an unseen force had lifted her bodily by the throat. Invisible fingers tightened around her trachea, not enough suffocate her into unconsciousness, but hard enough to let her know it wouldn't be too difficult to do it. In a blind panic, Goose kicked her feet uselessly in the air and clawed desperately to loosen hands that weren't there.

"Stupid," the woman snarled. "I have no personal grievance against you. Tell me where Skywalker and the Huttlet are, and I let you live."

The words barely registered in her racing mind. So this was the Force. Goose couldn't tear her eyes from the force-user's hand, outstretched in front of her and clenched almost into a fist. Breathing was getting harder by the second, and she wasn't sure how long it would be before she passed out. One thing was for certain, though. This woman had ordered the deaths of an entire company, her company, and Goose wasn't about to give her anything.

"Go to hell, you hairless harpy," Goose choked out.

The Separatist commander's pale face darkened with rage, and she furiously activated one of her lightsabers, leveling the humming crimson blade at Goose's neck.

"Fool. That jedi has done nothing to deserve this kind of loyalty," she hissed, face contorted with wrath. "Everyone is expendable to them, even you. If you die today, no one will care. Tell me where Skywalker is, and I'll consider not killing you."

The grip on her throat had tightened as well, making every breath Goose took a strangled gasp. She could hear the force-user speaking, but everything had gone fuzzy and black spots swam in her vision. All she could think of was that it was so absurd for her to threaten a helpless prisoner not only with suffocation, but decapitation as well. It was overkill. Despite the darkness that threatened to engulf her, she let a grim smirk flicker across her lips. If she died, so be it.

"What's it going…to be, then?" Goose wheezed, each word a struggle to get out. "You st-strangle me…to death, or you…cut my head off?"

An invisible force punched her in the chest, sending her flying back ten feet into the wall behind her, head cracking hard on the ancient stone. Goose felt the air rush back into her lungs, but the blow was so hard her entire body felt utterly nerveless. She collapsed limply to the ground, and as her vision blurred even more she saw the force-user taking steps closer to her, both lightsabers drawn, a feral snarl on her lips and a murderous glint in her eye.

Goose stared impassively, in too much pain to care anymore. The woman was standing over her, saying something, but Goose didn't hear it. She couldn't even think straight anymore. But as her eyes drooped shut, and everything dimmed into darkness, she could have sworn she saw Rex stand up out of the tangle of debris on the ground, a pistol in each hand.

A/N: I had lots of free time to write on the airplane, so I'm back a little early! What did you think of Ventress? Please leave a review!