Star Wars: Cold Vengeance

Chapter 1

Hoth, a cold and out of the way planet on the outer rim. No one went there because there was nothing of worth there, it was just a cold and desolate world that didn't even appear on most star charts. It was unforgiving with daytime temperatures well below zero degrees and storms that could bury a man alive in minutes. It was also home to those who did not want to be found, such as the Rebel Alliance.

The Battle of Yavin 4 and the destruction of the Death Star had occurred three years ago and after a long series of chases and near death experiences, the Rebellion had relocated to the icy planet and from there, managed to continue their war against the Empire. 

The time on Hoth was a low point. The Empire had been cracking down on all fronts. Production of military hardware was up and planets, previously left alone by the Empire were now being taken control of one by one to prevent any of them from throwing their support behind the rebellion. Yavin had been a rallying point for the Rebellion. It marked the group as a legitimate military threat to the Empire and gave hope to the suppressed people of the galaxy. More supplies came in, more weapons, more ships, more everything was given to the Rebellion by those who now had something to hope for long after their white guardians that once protected them had turned their guns to them.

It was also a rallying point for the Empire. The loss of the Death Star was a major blow to the Empire, but only politically. It was only a terror weapon, men and machines were replaceable. Instead, the Empire used it as an excuse to do everything that the politicians had stopped them from doing. Even with the last remnants of the Senate disbanded, the Empire was still required to hold itself to a certain standard in the public eye.

The ranks swelled as loyal citizens volunteered for the armed forces from the core and others were conscripted from the mid rim and outer rim systems that had resisted the Republic and now the Empire. Kuat began to produce ships at a rate that hadn't been seen since the Clone Wars. The triangular shaped star destroyers became a commons sight over many worlds, being large enough to be seen from the ground. The Empire was now occupying the entire galaxy and used that position to squeeze the Rebels.

While the Empire did this, the Rebel Alliance struck out. Small squadrons, including the infamous Rogue Squadron made regular run into the galaxy, hitting supply lines, space stations and other targets to show that they were still there, that they were still fighting. This spurred the Empire on even more to find and stamp out this resistance. It was only a matter of time before the Empire found the rebel base.

"An imperial probe droid." Princess Leia said, her voice pregnant with disappointment. It had already sent out a signal as well, Echo base was compromised. The Empire would be there soon and the Rebellion needed to move fast. There would be no daring strike like on Yavin 4, the Empire would come in force and move fast.

It only took an hour for the base to be in full blown evacuation mode. Non essential personnel were herded to their designated transports as soldiers went to the trenches and the pilots to their respective fighters. They had all been through the drills many times before and the process went by smoothly until the early warning systems detected the Imperial Fleet coming out of hyperspace.

"What do you mean the scope is broken." Corporal Korrin tapped the screen that was completely red. "It was just working." The screen was receiving signals from an array of sensors that scanned the immediate area around Hoth for any and all activity. Normally it would pick up the occasional meteorite that liked to break off from the nearby asteroid belt and pelt the planet. It would show up as a small red blip, the entire screen was painted red.

"It just turned red." The technical, bundled up in enough clothes to make movement difficult raised his hands up and off of the console as if his mere touching of the instrument had broken it. "One second it was all clear and then, bam." 

"I don't get it." Korrin fiddle with the controls. First he reset the sensor, sometimes it just needed to be turned on and off again. Much of the supplies the Rebellion used was dated, it was hard to get the new stuff, the Empire liked to enjoy its monopoly on anything that came after the Clone Wars. He then tried the zoom function. Normally the sensor would focus on the few hyperspace routes that came to the system.

The red continued for a while and Korrin kept zooming out until he saw what it was.

"You've got to be krifing kidding me." The technician went pale. There was nothing wrong with the sensor, the ship that had just entered the system was just that big.

"Send this to command now." Korrin looked the man in the eyes. "Do it." 

The technician nodded and quickly relayed his findings to the next person in line. To avoid any false alarms, there was a process to have anything verified as a threat. If someone thought that they found something worth noting, they passed it to another technician who was usually more experience, if that one decided it was good, then it was passed up and to the attention of command who had precious little time to look over everything. It took less than a minute for it to get to the eyes of Princess Leia and the rest of Alliance Command.

Corporal Korrin quickly made his way back to the barracks where the rest of his company was. Baava Company was a special unit of the Rebel Alliance, not because it was great or anything, but because of why it existed. It didn't have the track record of Rogue Squadron who had thousands of confirmed kills under its belt, but because it was a covering force, it was always the last to leave any retreat.

On Yavin 4, it had the sole duty of ensuring the transports escape and to inflict as much damage to the enemy before it escaped itself. The company had taken heavy casualties, not knowing at the time that it was fighting a force made up of the 501st and had paid dearly. The stormtroopers had also paid as well. Before retreating, the company commander, Colonel Mortin had set up explosives in the temple they had been defending before evacuating. Mortin had taken a lot of pleasure at seeing the lone stormtrooper try and run before he lost the connection. The temple had been turned into a tomb for both sides as the fifty meter tall structure collapsed in on itself.

Baava company had taken heavy casualties, over seventy percent of its strength had been lost, but now it was back up to speed and ready for its next job. 

"I'm assuming you heard the news." Korrin said as he slid the last meter across the ice to stop two paces away from the colonel who was slipping his arm through the jacket of his winter coat. The rest of the company, a mix of aliens from all corners of the galaxy were doing the same or similarly since body shape didn't always permit the same kind of clothing. There was a Mon Calamari who had to have a full mask on to prevent his highly saturated face from freezing solid.

"Imperial warships have dropped out of hyperspace." Mortin confirmed and put a set of ear warmers on. He looked comical with them on along with his one long scar and his mechanical eye that blankly stared at anything and everything, it was like a painting, no matter where one stood, it looked like it was looking at you. It creeped Korrin out. "Yeah, just got the news from General Rieekan himself." He pulled on a pair of gloves, wiggling his fingers to get them comfortably seated. 

"I'm guessing we're going to be stationed at the butt end like usual until everyone else is out." Korrin asked as he quickly opened his own foot locker which was at the base of his bunk that was near the colonel's. He had a standard issue set of clothing, the highest quality stuff a rebellion could get if it had existed four decades ago. Even though it was old, it was warm, insulation wasn't something that evolved much over the years, keep the heat in.

"Rieekan thinks that the Empire will attack the shield generator." Mortin hefted up his power pack onto his back. It held a radio, food, hand warmers, some spare clothes, and a power source to power the built in heating coils that lined his clothes. It was really lighter than it looked though and didn't hinder movement much. The antenna that stuck off the top sometimes made it hard to go through doors since it went up a full meter. "We go there first and then to defend the Ion Cannon and lastly Echo Base. We should be clear to leave by then, but that's the plan." He settled his helmet onto his head and finished his outfit with a pair of wind goggles that seated themselves on the brim of his helmet.

"Sounds simple." Korrin went through the same actions as the colonel, though he added a black scarf that he wrapped around his neck and let the last half meter hand over his left shoulder and behind him. It was his own way to keep his sanity with all of the white around. It had once been a shirt that he had found abandoned on a ship, a quick wash and clever cutting gave him the scarf he had now. "Too simple."

"Well, we won't know how to respond until we see what the Empire is throwing at us." Mortin slipped his Westar blaster into its holster at his side. He had carried that weapon since the Clone War. He had been there during the incident on Mandalore. He was actually Mandalorian himself, though he didn't let many know that since he had been on Death Watch. He regretted his actions and left that part of his history behind, only allowing his blasters to be a reminder of why he was part of the Rebellion, to stop another tyrannical government from taking control. "Until then, we only have the moving orders, though I'm going to raid the armory for anything and everything that isn't bolted down, I'll come back for those with a saw later."

Korrin was outfitted in his gear a few short minutes and left the now empty barracks behind. That room had been his home for years and now he was leaving it, probably for the last time because after today, the Rebellion would be on the run and the Empire would be occupying the planet like it had done on Yavin. 

Korrin thought about it for a moment. He better not leave anything of value behind. He ran over to his footlocker which was still open and sifted through it. It turned out Hoth had a lot of interesting stuff on it, well anything was interesting if it wasn't snow, water or ice. He picked up a wampa tooth and stuffed that into his pocket. He and the company sniper, Gorren had taken that off of a dead wampa that Gorren had picked off on a patrol. The beasts were angry and ravenous, they would eat anything meat and there were standing orders to kill them on site.

Another thing was a series of small glass vials, each one filled with dirt. Each vial was filled with the soil of each world he had visited. The soil varied in color from boring brown, there was a lot of boring brown dirt in the galaxy, to black, red, yellow and even slightly purple. He had done this because he had been the first person in his family to ever leave his home planet of Dantooine. He came from a long line of farmers and he had intended to be a farmer until he joined the stormtrooper corp. He was strong, fast and human, exactly what the Empire needed. The recruiter was very convincing and even agreed to give his family a signing bonus to help. The family received the money just as was promised and Korrin was shipped out. He went through the intensive training and went on to serve with distinction, going to the rank of first sergeant, then he began to see the horrors of the Empire.

It had been on Kashyyyk. The planet had been under Imperial control for over a decade at the time after a Jedi had tried to lead and insurrection. It was all normal there, insurrections were put down. It was how the planet was being treated, even after so many years that made Korrin left.  Dead wookies were everywhere and those that weren't dead were dying. The once proud creatures built of muscle, were nothing but rags draped over their frames. They had no hope in their eyes and were beaten regularly. That wasn't it though.

On occasion, Trandoshans would stop by and even though it was illegal for them to do so, the officers would sell the wookies to them where they would be hunted through the woods and then skinned for their pelts. It was sickening to see the skinless bodies hanging, drying with salt rub in the sun and the smell had made him lose his lunch. Korrin had tried to convince his officer that what he was doing was wrong, but was ignored and threatened with a court martial if he continued to act the way he did.

Apparently a Rebel spy had heard about his actions and made contact with him. He was planning an op to get some notable wookies off world and to freedom. Korrin had his doubts at first. Being with the stormtroopers for so long, he felt as if they were family. The stormtroopers hadn't wronged him, it was the officers who were breaking the law. Korrin didn't accept the offer, but he didn't turn in the operative either. He had committed treason by doing so, but no one would ever learn that and life would go as normal.

It was two days later when there was a commotion just outside of the Imperial base that Korrin was at. He was woken up by a klaxon and someone telling him to suit and and muster in the courtyard in ten minutes. He was there in five, shaved and ready to go with his E-11.

"There's been an outbreak at the north internment camp." The imperial officer paced back and forth in front of the company of stormtroopers, not at all uneasy by the monotonous faces looking at him. They were all the same, the only thing that told them apart was their height. 

The company that Korrin was with, Viper Company, was all volunteer. There wasn't a single clone among them, so the height difference could get extreme with the smallest member of the company being at exactly one meter tall and the tallest at over two meters. The Empire didn't care much as long as the person could perform just as well and was human.

"Wookies have managed to break free of their restraints and procure weapons from an unknown source." The officer walked with his head up and his rank insignia showing prominently on his gray chest. He was proud of where he was, or rather attempted to be proud. Kashyyyk was a dead end world where officers went to live out the rest of their contract. Luckily for Korrin at the time, stormtroopers weren't tied to the same fates, they were moved regularly wherever they were needed the most. "It is believed that they are receiving outside help. Your job is to stop the beasts before they caused too much damage and weed out the infiltrator and eliminate him."

There was no more to the briefing. The company was loaded onto shuttles as AT-STs walked out of the gates where they would meet the company at the camp. This was going to be a simple operation. Armor at the front and infantry landing at the rear to mop up the rest, the wookies, even armed were still malnourished and without any real leadership.

It was just that. There was light resistance as the wookies, once brave and noble warriors, couldn't fight off the imperial soldiers along with their armor. The company took no casualties except for one soldier who fell through a few feet and sprained an ankle when the second floor of a burned building gave out under him. 

The survivors were quickly rounded up in the center as another company of conventional soldiers was brought in to sweep the surrounding area for the possible infiltrator.

"What should we do with them, sir?" Korrin asked the same officer who had debriefed him earlier, he pointed at the two dozen wookies who were on their knees with their hands behind their back. "They're beat."

"Yes." The officer scratched his chin and his nose twitched. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and put it over his nose to cover the smell. "They are quite the beaten creature." He talked to them as if they were nothing more than animals, not the smart and intelligent creatures that had built entire cities in the trees and created marvelous works of art that actually lined the walls of the officer's quarters.

"We can have them moved to camp bravo in an hour." Korrin offered a simple solution, but the officer waved the idea off.

"No, sergeant. These things have shown that they have a taste for blood." He stopped to think a bit. "What do you do with such a creature?" He asked Korrin, though answered it for him. "You put it down. Sergeant, I want them disposed of however way you seem fit."

"Sir?" It was the first mistake, questioning an officer. Stormtroopers didn't question and several others turned to look at him.

"You heard me." The officer said, willing to let the slip up pass. He had heard about the sergeant before and how he had questioned officers about the well being of wookies before. The man was human after all and humans sometimes liked to feel sorry for animals.

Korrin looked back at the wookies who were watching him. There wasn't hate in their eyes, they were scared. They didn't want to die, they just wanted to live their lives. 

"Do you need a demonstration?" The officer pulled out his pistol, a chrome antique pistol with wooden grips, it looked like it belonged in a museum, probably did at one point and then was looted by this man. He aimed it at one of the smaller wookies who he presumed to be a child, or just the youngest. One of the wookies moved to put itself between the blaster and the younger one, but a quick jab from the but of rifle stopped that. "Well?" The officer said and Korrin hesitated. Strike two.

The officer gave a disappointed grunt and there was a blaster shot. The officer's eye's went wide as he looked down to see that he hadn't shot the wookie, he had been shot himself and not even by Korrin.

Korrin stepped back and the other stormtroopers around him looked around for the source of the attack as the officer crumpled to the ground, his blaster skittering a meter away.

"Do you have a lock?" Korrin asked the others.

"Negative." One replied, the mistakes earlier forgotten for the time being. 

There was another shot and a stormtrooper fell over, he was stunned. Another one fell shortly after, a round blue ring hitting him square in the chest.

Using the moment, the wookies jumped the rest. One was shot down as he ran towards the closest stormtrooper who fired wildly, scorching fur. The one behind him got to him and there was a sickening and long scream as he was torn in half. The rest of the stormtroopers fired into the mass.

It was too much for Korrin to handle and he ran from the slaughter he ran into the woods until he couldn't hear the sound of fighting anymore. 

He threw off his helmet and vomited. In all his years in the corp, he had never seen such violence. Again it was the officers that were ruining everything. Why did they have to take advantage of him and his brothers loyalty like this and twist it to their will. The wookies were beaten.

"Hello there?" Korrin jumped up and swung his blaster around towards the voice. It was the rebel operative from earlier and he was unarmed. 

"I should turn you in." Korrin hissed, but lowered his weapon. The man had trusted to keep his mouth shut and not say anything earlier, he didn't think that he would be shot in the back.

"But you won't" The man said and pulled a datapad out of his pocket. "You're going to be coming with me and leave this planet of your own free will."

"Why would I do that?" Korrin asked. He had no intention of doing any such thing. He would go back and melt back into the ranks and report what had just happened and life would go on as it always had. "You have nothing I want."

"The stormtroopers have nothing you want." He tried to hand over the datapad, but Korrin slapped it away.

"It's my life, that's what it is and by law I should turn you in." It was becoming a more enticing idea by the second. The man would be convicted immediately. No one had ever accused a stormtrooper of lying and got away with it in a court of law.

"If you go back, you die." 

"Just like those wookies you armed?" He scoffed. 

"I gave them the opportunity to leave with me, they wanted to fight even if they knew there was no victory and I wasn't going to stop them from making their own choices in life, even if it's one to end it." The rebel pushed the data pad forward. "I'm not going to force you to do anything, but I'm not going to let you leave until you know everything."

Korrin took the datapad slowly. He didn't trust the man, but he did seem serious about this.

The data pad had a set of very specific instructions on it detailing how Korrin was supposed to die. It included details, right down to the second on how Korrin would act. He would refuse to kill the wookies and the officer would threaten to do the job himself. A stormtrooper behind him would kill the officer and start a fight with the remaining wookies. Korrin was not to survive the engagement. It even had the official seal of the stormtrooper corp, meaning the corp itself sanctioned this and it couldn't be fake either. The seal was encrypted and couldn't be replicated. He had been sentenced to death, though in a way that made it look like another battlefield casualty.

"What?" Korrin dropped the pad. "Why?"

"You're different from the others." The rebel said. "You're  not like the rest, you're not a brainwashed puppet like the rest." 

Korrin thought it was wrong to call the corp a bunch of puppets, but he could see it. Since the beginning they were taught to obey, obey, obey and nothing else. He had been fine with it, orders were simple and easy to follow... until they weren't.

"You can't go back." The rebel said. "Come with me instead. The scene is so much of a mess that they'll just assume you were killed along with everyone else."

Korrin thought about it long and hard. He worried about his life, he would be throwing it all away, but he would also be killed for going back. He would be killed by the very corp that he believed he loved and had served so long with. Everything was a lie, he had no choice.

Now, many years later, Korrin was here on Hoth, holding the vial of dirt from Kashyyyk. It looked just like the rest, but it marked a time of change for him. He couldn't take all of the vials so he took that one and put it on a thread before he put it over his head where it settled on his neck, the vial tucked under his shirt. He didn't need anything else from the chest.

Korrin got up and ran out to catch up with the rest of the company. He would be fighting stormtroopers out there, but there weren't his brothers anymore, those around him now, the Rebellion was his family and he would fight to protect family and that time would come quickly because Korrin knew that the corp didn't like to sit above planets in their ships. The corp belonged on the ground, fighting and in the trenches and they liked to get there fast. The battle of Hoth was imminent.