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The gunship yawed sharply. Commander Fox gurgled.
Morto took another powerful drag on the tube before flicking through the external cam feeds, desperately scanning for beams of blasterfire or the flash of a lightsaber. Nothing yet. Just the medevac speeder he’d called, tight on their six. Waste of fuel if they didn’t touch down ASAP. He had to risk it.
“Slingshot, you need to fucking fly faster,” Morto hissed into helmet comms, trusting their private channel was actually private, even with a helmeted spook on board. “We gotta ditch the pissy cape before the commander goes cold.”
“Maybe you should quit while you’re not dead,” Slingshot threw back over the straining engines. Whatever Sling thought about their commander’s chances, at least he had the stones to respond.
“Fuck you. He’ll have to turf me first.” Morto glanced up at Vader. His own throat tightened against an upswell of hatred.
The Guard had been stationed around the Temple when a rogue Jedi punched a hole and sprang free. Morto’s gunship had offered the creepy asthmatic a lift, only for Commander Fox to be repaid with a rattling to shake the dead. No rhyme nor reason Morto could figure, except that the commander’s men hadn’t managed to stitch pieces of a Jedi down the Temple wall.
So what? She was running straight into the red wrath of Corrie. And Skywalker’s beloved bluejobs shouldn’t have failed the first time.
With every jerk of the ship, Morto winced behind his bucket. He’d tried to stabilize the commander’s neck in his lap as he tended his crushed throat. But odds were good Fox’s spine was karked. Morto had never heard plastoid crack like that.
“Target spotted!” came Roach’s shout. Vader finally moved, sweeping in a black fury towards the gunner in the cockpit.
The rest of the squad were still clinging to their grab-straps. They didn’t acknowledge the carnage at their feet except to shake their heads like disinterested dismounts just catching a ride. Like the fucker on the floor wasn’t an officer who’d charge into the furthest star for them. Like they weren’t brothers. Vader had their courage tucked between their wet legs.
“Bunch of cowards,” Morto spat, boosting his volume so they couldn’t miss it. “Not worth the fucking jar to grow you.”
He had a sworn duty to render aid; at this rate, it’d begin and end with his commanding officer. His hands were bloody from his first field trach — unassisted, but not for lack of begging. Morto was new around here. Just a couple months past shiny. But if allowed off this gunship alive, he’d be at Commander Stone’s desk before the engines cooled. Termination would be too swift: the whole squad deserved a booting to a shitgrinding penal unit to pickle in their own guilt.
The medevac pilot had just clicked through for a vitals check when Slingshot’s voice burst from the loudhailer. “All troops! Do not fire! That is a high-value target!”
So they’d caught up with the Jedi — but no chance of lighting her up and being on their miserable way. Shit on a scalpel.
Morto didn’t need feeds now. The gunship was sweeping over a platoon — Trill Company by their tallies — and Vader was distracted by the Jedi on the starboard side. From the open hatch, Morto waved below frantically. “Can you set her down, Sling?” he shouted at the pilot.
“ — trying, I’m trying!”
Vader was still too close for comfort, but Trill were now close enough for a short-range patch. Morto cycled through comms till he hit upon Trill’s chatter. “Trill Company, this is the gunship’s medic. Commander down. I say again, Commander Fox down. Requesting assistance on the port hatch now.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Carefully as he dared, Morto manoeuvred out from beneath the commander’s head. His training warred painfully with his dread. The commander was a foot from the edge; the edge was still meters from the ground. What was Sling waiting for? A bleedin' red carpet?
The medevac team touched down outside before Morto could ask if they needed an invitation, too. They scrambled out double-time. Thank every god big and small and beyond a grateful clone’s comprehension. “Fucking shift it!” Morto bellowed at them. Needlessly. Helplessly. He checked the commander’s pulse. He cleared another haggard breath from the commander’s lungs. He chucked the commander’s helmet to one of the men mustered outside.
Everything was ozone and fear. Everything was still too far away.
A collective inhale vacuumed out Morto’s ears. Something was happening with the Jedi on the other side. He prayed the bitch was entertaining them with some chorus-line kicks.
Then his skull filled with that baritone voice, booming beyond the baffles. “Bring her aboard. And pilot? Do not make me take those controls myself.”
The floor shuddered underfoot. No, no, no —
“Morto — gonna have to dust off!” Slingshot yelled, his panic rising with every word. “Now or never!”
There were uplifted hands. There was a proffered stretcher. There was just no damn time.
Morto looked down. The broken clone at his feet was old. First command batch and greying at the edges like it. And if he survived this, he’d be last in line to thank the medic who’d relegated the once mighty Commander Fox to a hoverchair in overtime.
Still. What were idiot little brothers for.
“I’m sorry, Commander.” And Morto shoved Fox out to safety.