Star Wars: Cold Vengeance

Chapter 4

The Empire hit hard and fast, just as they always did. A squadron of tie fighters came screaming down from the upper atmosphere with no regard to their dangerous entry velocity and buzzed the rebel defenders. It was inaccurate and did little damage, but the sound of the oddly shaped fighters that were built with the sole purpose of killing, were meant to instil fear. The hypersonic screech they emitted as they tore through the clouds put everyone on edge and as Sergeant Morya watched them get chased off by X-Wings, his gut had already dropped.

The X-Wings were doing their job, engaging in dogfights with the Imperials, but that left the sky open for the Imperial transports to come and loft to the ground where they deployed their cargo.

The ground shook as the walkers set down. There were so many of the four legged, monstrosities. Their tall legs allowed them hover over the battlefield and their cannons were accurate enough to pick off individuals or devastating enough to wipe out entire areas of land. Their bellies carried a full contingent of stormtroopers and swarms of AT-STs hugged their legs.

Morya gripped her blaster tightly in her gloves. She shivered, not because she was cold, but because she could see the walkers coming towards her. It seemed as if the entire Empire was bearing down on just her, not on Hoth, not on Echo Base, but her. They were be at her position, one of the far reaching relay outposts that was set up to extend the range of snowspeeder patrols which had reduced communications due to snow storms. The relay outposts picked up signals and boosted them back to Echo Base, allowing the patrols to go farther out. Now she and the rest of the outpost's hundred defenders were the first line of defense.

The outpost's defenses were set up much like the rest of Echo Base. There was a series of trenches that stretched out for several hundred meters and there were the turrets spaced between them.

Morya was near the front, in the third row of trenched. She had to stand on a power box that was connected to a nearby turret to see over the edge of the trench. While she hated being short, being a female Bothan, she was smaller than her male counterparts, she liked it now. If she stepped off the box, the walker's couldn't see her and if they couldn't see her, they couldn't shoot her.

It reminded her of times back home on Bothawui as a child. She was small then and could sneak some freshly baked snacks that her mother would make, but didn't let her or her brothers eat since it would spoil their appetite. She would sneak into the kitchen and be able to grab a few since she was easily overlooked. She would take them and run off to her room to eat them and never shared with her brothers since they often made fun of her for being so small. That was the way of the Bothans who were known for being devious and deceptive in everything they did. There was always an ulterior motive, they were always finding a way to one up the other.

Morya got an upper hand over her siblings by stealing cookies. Even though her brothers never knew, she took great joy in knowing she got them and they didn't'. Now here she was, on a desolate planet. How times have changed. She was part of the Rebel Alliance, on the ground fighting. She was a veteran of the Battle of Yavin 4 and other conflicts while her brothers were back home or on Bothawui.

Her ears folded back against a cold gust of wind as she wondered if she made the right choice. The Empire was evil, there was no doubt about that. Bothawui had been secretly helping the Rebellion for a long time, seeing it's imperialistic ways as a threat to their way of life. There was no way to beat the Empire politically and the Emperor had managed to outmaneuver all adversaries. He was the figure to rally against. The Emperor was cunning, smart and had resources and to beat him on any field would be a proud moment indeed for the Bothans who were always looking for new ways to come out on top.

Though her fate to fight against the Empire had been sealed a long time ago, Morya wondered if actually fighting was the best route. It was dangerous and there was always the risk of death with little chance of making a name for herself. Sure, she would know that she had made a small difference, but not many others would. He parents had supported her decision, but they would have supported her in anything since she was the runt. There wasn't much she could do in society as the runt of the litter. Being the runt of the litter, she was disqualified from all positions that would put her in the public eye. Bothans wanted only the most physically appealing members to represent them.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that this was really the only thing she could have hoped for. At least here, very few judged her and even though some still did make fun of her for being the runt, it was always in a joking manner. Here in the trenches, as long as she could follow orders and fire her weapon, she was an equal. Here in the Rebellion, she had already achieved more than she would have if she stayed back home.

Her brothers on the other hand were still home. They plotted against each other all of the time, trying to climb the political ladder of the complex Bothan political machine. They not only competed against each other, they competed against the rest of the planet as well. It was a hectic system that often ended in political stalemate on the surface, but in reality, a lot did get done as under the table deals were always happening, moving everything along. Many other species often can't fathom how Bothawui remained a vital planet in the galactic scene.

This constant plotting also created one of the galaxy's most potent and reliable intelligence rings. In time of conflict, such as now, the individual politicians which would often use spies against each other, turned their resources against the Empire. They provided anything from troop movements to poorly defended trade routes.

And of course, there were plenty of Bothans who were willing to fight as well. Thousands of Bothans filled the ranks of the Rebellion and many were here now with Morya. Thel, an old childhood friend of Morya's nearby. He was checking the status of the power grid. He went from power box to power box, following the snaking cables that connected them all with his data pad out as he made sure there was no short or open anywhere. A failure anywhere would spell disaster.

Morya wasn't shivering anymore as she spotted her friend approaching her, his face buried in his datapad.

"You ready for this?" She asked and caught the Bothan who was just as tall as her when she was on the box. He looked up, his eyes wide.

"Umm..." He was flustered. Morya knew he had a crush on her. He had always been like this around her and had practically followed her to the Rebellion. His parents had been less than enthusiastic when he turned down an offer to shadow one of the planet's representatives at the Senate. It was an offer of a lifetime and would have given him a distinct advantage over his peers, but he turned it down and joined the Rebellion mere days after Morya.

From there, he pulled all kinds of strings and called on favors to make sure they were in the same unit. It was very cute and Morya was honored to be the center of his attention when she was often overlooked by others. It was a fresh of breath air and although she didn't share the same kind of feelings that he had for her, she did see him as a very close friend and someone she wanted to keep around.

"Umm..." He repeated and quickly glanced down at the datapad. "The power relay is good and all the turrets are operational."

Morya shook her head and hopped down from the box. "I wasn't asking about the turrets." She glanced up at the Bothan who looked very nervous as she closed the distance between them. It was always funny to see him get all flustered. "I was asking about you."

He looked at her blankly for a moment. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm ready." He gave a nervous chuckle and took a step back get some distance and breathing room. He was already sweating despite it being well below freezing outside.

"Good." Morya gave a quick nod and glanced over in the direction of the walkers. Though she couldn't see them anymore over the snowbank, her sensitive hearing allowed her to hear their metallic steps slowly closing the distance between her and them,

The rest of the outpost was tense. The initial panic and chaos of preparing everything was done and now there was nothing to do but wait for the enemy to come to them. The one-hundred defenders were evenly spaced across the trenches to give them maximum coverage. They weren't expected to stop the assault. They just needed to give the rest of the base time to prepare. The Ion Cannon took time to charge and every second that the Empire delayed, was another second that transports had to escape.

Once they got a signal from command, they would fall back into their outpost and use the network of underground tunnels to fall reconnect with the rest of Echo Base where the battle would continue. Morya was grateful that she was actually scheduled to get on a transport as soon as she got back. While she felt a bit of guilt at the idea of leaving early, she wasn't about to purposely stay any longer than she had to.

"We've got bombers incoming." Someone screamed out as three pairs of tie bombers broke the cloud line and came at them.

"Take cover." The outpost commander, a human yelled out as he turned around and ran back into the outpost which was just a small bunker with a radio in it.

"Come on." Morya grabbed Thel who was staring up at the sky and the black shapes of the bombers and pulled him down. They laid there on their stomachs as the bombers flew overhead.

The bombers didn't drop their payload though, they flew on by, ignoring the small outpost. They were going for the actual base.

"I hate this." Thel sat up and brushed the snow off of his overcoat. "I feel so useless right now." All of the pent up stress that he and everyone else was feeling was beginning to show.

"You aren't though." Morya tried to comfort him by lifting his chin with a nerf hide glove. "What we're doing here is important." It was what she told herself since this was the only place that she felt that she could make a difference.

"It feels so pointless if we can just be wiped out." He grumbled and sat with his back against the wall of the trench. "If those bombers dropped their bombs." He sighed and Morya understood. Both of them had seen a lot over the years. They had seen so many people die, cut down indiscriminately and so random, their names not even known by most people. They seemed so insignificant on the large scale, but Morya knew better than to think that and was actually kind of insulted that Thel was thinking that.

"You're a Bothan." She crouched in front of Thel and looked up at him. "We're raised to start at the bottom and work our way up to the top. Look at you now." She shook him by his shoulders. "You're fighting against something so much bigger than us and we'll win. How do you think that pilot felt when he took down the Death Star. A single person did that."

Everyone knew about Luke Skywalker and how he had destroyed the Death Star. Now he was leading the infamous Rogue Squadron which was a name that even the Empire Feared. He had just been a farmer boy and now he was the face of the Rebellion and was actually here on Hoth fighting as well.

Thel wasn't entirely convinced. He knew that his attitude wasn't the best, but it was so hard for him to remain optimistic in the face of such odds. The Empire had more ships, more men, more everything and here he was chasing an old crush who only treated him like a friend. He would continue to follow her, he was her friend and would stick with her, it was just disheartening at times. Though, she was confident and he couldn't bring her down like this.

"You're right." Thel said and slowly rose to his feet. He had a blaster pistol strapped to his belt. He grabbed it. He liked the finesse of the small, but precise weapon over the clunkiness of a blaster. He had practiced back home before leaving and was actually a good shot, though he found it hard to bring himself to kill anymore, even in self defense. He did it, it was necessary, but it left him feeling strange each time he killed. He wasn't a murderer, it was war and in war, people killed people. It was just how it went.

He never froze when in a fight, never once did he hesitate. He fired his weapon when he needed to, but it was in the late hours of the night that he thought about what he did. He thought of the lives that he ended and how he cut them short just as they tried to cut his own life short. His father had told him how each life was like a book, a novel, a collection of short stories that are constantly being written and when a person dies of old age and dies peacefully, the book comes to an end that may leave a reader wanting more, but leaves them enough that they aren't mad that it's done. When a life ends violently, unexpectedly the story ends suddenly, right when it was getting good and is never picked up again. This leaves people angry, hateful, and wondering how it was supposed to end.

Thel thought about this each night before he slept and wondered how many stories he ended prematurely. In the end though, he pushed the thoughts aside because the more he thought about it, the more depressed he became and he didn't want to be depressed, not when Morya is around. Even though he had accepted that he wasn't going get Morya to love him back, he wanted to be a part of her story and her in his, so he followed her, he fought by her and killed for her.

"Walker's are deploying infantry."

Thel looked down at Morya who gazed up at him expectantly. "Here they come." He said quietly as soldiers primed their weapons, getting ready to hold off the Imperial assault. The walkers were close, just out of weapon's range.

"Yeah." She brought the rifle up to her chest and stepped onto the power box, bringing her rifle up to her chest she peered through the scope. The snow seemed to be moving as snowtroopers ran at them. Stray blaster fire was already filling the air. "Let's show them that we matter." She fired a few rounds into the white, not sure if she was actually hitting something.

Thel felt inspired by her, just watching her in action and that got him moving.

The turrets were firing now into the horde of white troopers that were already beginning to overwhelm their first trenches.

"We need to push them back," Thel yelled and ran down the trench. Morya was about to go after him when a AT-ST began to fire at her. Its bolts smashed into the snow, sending slush into the air and the Bothan back. She fell and rolled out of its fire and lost sight of Thel who was now heading to the front. She wanted to go with him, make sure he was safe.

Morya looked around wildly. A rebel soldier came into view poking his head over the trench wall with a rocket. He aimed and fired. The rocket sent out a gust of fire behind the soldier before propelling itself into the walker.

The walker reared back from the impact, but it didn't fall. It turned it's attention away from the Bothan who hadn't even fired a shot at it and fired at the trooper who ducked behind a snowbank. "Can you draw it's fire long enough for me to get another shot?" The trooper yelled at Morya, being the closest person to him.

Morya nodded. She was now focused. Although before the battle, she was terrified, she found strength during the heat of the fight. All fear left her as her years of experienced kicked in. She knew that walkers were clumsy things, barely balanced on two legs that were meant to allow it to traverse uneven terrain like a person. It also gave it a slow turning radius since it had to slowly twist around to face anything that was firing at it. "Let me get behind it." Morya yelled and the trooper gave her thumbs up and began to reload his rocket.

Morya, no longer being shot at, got up and ran down the trench. The trenches were like a maze and allowed anyone to get to any position while covered. It allowed the rebels to avoid fire while strengthening defensive positions.

The AT-ST had charged right into the middle of the trenches, exposing it to fire from all side and others were already firing at it, but the walker was still facing the immediate threat of the rocket.

Morya needed a way to gets its attention long enough for a second. There were crates around everywhere filled with supplies. Morya went to the one with ion shots. She grabbed the small device and attached it to the barrel of her rifle. It crackled when it came to life, small arcs of blue electricity that would charge her shots raced up and down her barrel. She raced around the trenches until she was behind the walker that was putting a large crater into the area where the rocker trooper had been. She hoped he was still alive.

She raised her rifle and fired at the walker. Blue bolts smacked into the walker, sending blue sparks and molten plasma in every direction. She was doing some real damage when the walker slowly began to turn towards her, no longer interested in the rocket wielding rebel that it could no longer see. Turns out the rebel was still alive and kicking. As soon as the walker took one step towards Morya, the rebel popped up and fired.

The head of the walker burst like an overripe melon. It erupted in flames and the legs fell back into its haunches.

One down, many more to go.

The battle was a losing on. Morya and anyone else could see that. Snowtroopers, under covering fire from the Imperial Walkers, had taken the first trench and were setting up their E-Web turrets. Some brave individuals tried to stop them by rushing their position with thermal detonators, but were quickly shot by the walkers which might as well have attacked the base by themselves. Their armor was too thick for anything the rebels could throw at them and so they continued to march forward.

Morya tried to find Thel. She was afraid that he had been killed since she couldn't see him anywhere across the smoking white landscape. She looked across the trenches, watching each retreating rebel, looking for that one Bothan in the group, but she couldn't see anything.

"Where are you?" She said as she ran at a half crouch down a trench towards the front.

A snowtrooper, in all white and with that faceless visor, jumped out from around a corner. He raised his blaster and Morya quickly jumped off to the side to avoid the fire. She tucked and rolled out of view, behind some crates. The trooper kept firing, sending sparks flying around her.

Morya took two deep breaths and waited for a pause. The trooper's weapon would overheat and she would use the opportunity to kill him.

She waited and when there was that moment when the shooting stopped, she dove out from behind the crate. The trooper looked up in surprise, his weapon steaming and not yet cooled down. A quick shot to the head put him down fast. Morya ran past the body, there were too many to focus on the dead.

Morya almost didn't notice it at first, it had happened so suddenly. The air had been filled with the sound of combat, screaming, explosions, the burning of flesh from being hit by super heated plasma, it was all gone, even the walkers had stopped and that made Morya stop.

She looked up and around. Everyone had just stopped firing. The Imperials had stopped and were taking positions, ready to open up again, but they didn't and that had made the rebels stop as well.

The two sides stared at each other from their respective sides, separated by a clear dead zone where nothing lived moved. Morya was afraid of what this meant. She heard the stories about the attack on the Death Star. The turbolaser turrets had stopped firing when Darth Vader, that mysterious masked figure who led the Stormtrooper Corp, entered the battle. The turret operators were ordered to stop to avoid hitting the man who had more kills under his belt than any other Imperial.

Did this mean that Darth Vader was about to enter the battlefield? Morya looked desperately for the black figure. She had never seen him before, so she didn't know what exactly to look for. She had only heard of stories from those lucky few who had survived an encounter or simply claimed to have survived an encounter. They said that he was tall, wore a full suit of black and had a mask that showed nothing but hate. There was also his breathing. Sometimes details were sketchy. Some claimed that he could move objects with his mind. Others said he could pull a star ship out of orbit. It was impossible to tell what was fact or fiction, but the breathing was always there. He breathed through a raspy respirator that anyone could hear anywhere. Some joked that you could hear Darth Vader before you saw him. Morya wasn't laughing now.

There was no breathing, but there was another noise. A weird groaning clank of some kind of machine. It stressed and pulled and it was the only thing that Morya could hear.

Groan. CLANK

She winced at the sound. If it was a machine, it sounded as if it was on its last legs. She looked towards the source of the sound which was behind the Imperial lines.

Groan. CLANK!

It was closer now and Morya cursed her height because she could only barely see over the lip of the trench.

Groan. CLANK

It sounded as if it was right on top of her.

"Rebel." It was a soothing voice, but it held the promise of death.

Morya turned around to see him, the figure. He was standing at the end of the trench. Was it a stormtrooper? It had the right helmet, but it didn't look right and it was black, black as the deepest parts of space.

Groan. CLANK.

It took a step forward. Oh how it moved was so wrong as if it had just learned to walk. It limped with the step, falling onto what could only be a poorly optimized prosthetic leg that was made for someone either heavier than him or just larger because it looked too big for him. He didn't seem to care.

Morya then looked at his arms. One was also fake and instead of a hand, it had a large, menacing blaster attached to the end of it, painted black just like the rest of him. It wasn't raised. The other hand could have been prosthetic as well, but it was clad in black armor, it didn't shine, though it looked impeccably clean, it absorbed the bright Hoth sun, letting no light escape.

"Rebel." It repeated and took another step.

Morya raised her blaster, unsure of what to do. It was Imperial and she should kill it was what came to mind, but seeing it made her almost pity it. What had the Empire done to this person to make it appear so broken?

"Rebel's killed them." He said, not talking to her, but more to himself. "They killed them all and they must pay." He reached behind him and pulled out a long vibroblade. With the blade in his grasp, he let his arm drop, the blade's tip carving into the snow. "I must make them pay."

Morya wasn't having anymore of this. She fired and immediately regretted it when that oversized leg made a popping sound and the figure sprung forward instantly. The bolt missed him by what appeared to be mere centimeters. Morya didn't have enough time to fire again as the blade slid cleanly through her, but she did have enough time to think of Thel and how it would have been nice to have just married him and settled down instead of joining the rebellion. In time, she believed, she would have come to love him.