Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company (23 page)

After that, the battle took on two fronts. Namir called out for Roja and Beak to stay in the trench and take aim at the charging stormtroopers. The surviving Echo Base troops stayed on the artillery, trying to lock onto the walker as it picked them off one by one. Namir heard troops scream, saw flashes of red particle bolts, but he held his position, his chest pressed against the packed snow of the trench wall and his head and shoulders peeking above.

At any time, he knew, the walker might select him as a target. But if the stormtroopers reached the trench, Namir and the others were dead anyway; so he gripped his rapidly overheating rifle in his cold hands, took aim and fired at each stormtrooper in turn. He shot methodically, if not calmly, acquiring each new target as soon as he saw flames lick the armor of the last.

When there were no more stormtroopers in his immediate firing arc, he spared another glance for his surroundings. The artillery stations were in ruins. The walker had, unexpectedly, crossed the trench and now stood on the south side. Something was attached to its leg, hanging like a piece of debris—Namir thought it was scrap from the turret until he recognized the broken form of the woman who’d cheered for the transports, the woman who’d alerted Namir to the scouting party.

She had one arm wrapped around the machine’s ankle joint, her hand trapped in the gears. Her legs weren’t moving. But somehow she was still alive—her head was up, and Namir thought he saw her smile as she raised a grenade in her free hand. He wanted to call out to her as she disappeared in a fiery bloom and the walker plummeted forward, but he didn’t know her name.

He turned back to the north side of the trench. He saw the handful of stormtroopers still alive cut down by Beak and Roja—the former still in the trench, the latter picking his way among the bodies on the ice. The second artillery platform had disappeared, presumably withdrawn back toward the AT-ATs’ path.

The withdrawal didn’t surprise Namir. Outpost Delta had lost its turret and most of its crew. It was no longer a threat to the invasion of Hoth.

The rebel snowspeeders were barely hindering the walkers. Not one AT-AT had been disabled by the time the fight at Outpost Delta finished, and the bulk of the Imperial forces had already progressed south past the outpost toward Echo Base. Delta’s sole designated vehicle had been destroyed during the fighting and its tauntauns had scattered, which left Namir, Roja, and Beak with a long walk home.

As they marched atop a crust of frozen snow, the trio saw more rebel transports flash across the sky. If the base personnel could finish evacuating, Namir thought, the battle’s losses might not be fatal to the Alliance.

The three didn’t talk much during the trek. Roja cradled his arm strangely, as if injured. Beak’s shoulders were hunched but his chin was up, the picture of grim determination. Namir scanned the horizon, trying to judge their distance from the walkers. The titanic machines were moving landmarks, and the farther south they plodded, the more unstoppable they appeared.

About a kilometer from the outpost, the three found a wheeled Imperial combat transport apparently abandoned in the snow. Broad scorch marks on its armored sides suggested it had been hit by cannon or snowspeeder fire, but when Roja climbed aboard he had it working again in minutes. Namir didn’t know where its passengers had gone and he didn’t especially care—it was a way to reach Echo Base before everything ended.

Roja and Beak drove. Namir sat atop the hulking machine, grimacing at the painful lash of the wind as he studied the detritus of the walkers’ passing. He spotted crashed snowspeeders bleeding black smoke; burning turrets and charred bodies at other outlying sentry posts; cracked ice and depressions left by durasteel walker footpads. The wheeled transport—Roja called it a Juggernaut—raced over abandoned trenches with a sickening jolt, undeterred and unharmed.

Twice, Namir called for a stop when he saw other rebel soldiers stranded on the ice plains. There was no time to halt for the dying, to check for survivors at every scene of destruction, but aiding those still walking was a compromise Namir could make.

The Juggernaut’s passengers numbered almost a dozen when an AT-AT walker finally went down. Namir couldn’t see the cause—the falling walker was the size of a fist on the far horizon—but it seemed to stumble as snowspeeders flitted about its legs. Its joints bent forward and then its whole body plunged headlong into the ice with a roar even Namir could hear—a low boom, less like a bomb than an avalanche. One of the rebels who’d joined Namir atop the transport grasped Namir’s shoulders from behind and dug his fingers into the cloth of his jacket.

“One blasted walker,” the man said—to himself or to Namir, Namir wasn’t sure. “If we can take down one, we can take them all.”

Namir didn’t agree, but he didn’t correct the man. If it had been Twilight soldiers dying and evacuating, he might have uttered the same lie.

The last five hundred meters to Echo Base were the worst of the journey. The hijacked Juggernaut had to travel between two walkers to reach the north entrance, and the mass of the machines seemed to blot out the sky. Then a final push through a line of Imperial stormtroopers nearly ended the lives of all aboard—Namir and the rescued soldiers pressed themselves to the icy metal roof of the transport, firing a sweeping barrage of bolts to force open a path. One of the soldiers fell from the Juggernaut, and Namir didn’t see him again. Another rose into a crouch to toss a grenade and was shot through the chest for his efforts.

But the vehicle’s armor plating held long enough for the Juggernaut to cross into friendly territory. There, its passengers disembarked to join Echo Base’s last line of defense.

The soldiers remaining on the battlefield had already begun abandoning the turrets and artillery emplacements two and three at a time. Namir grabbed a man wearing a colonel’s insignia after swinging down into a trench. “We just got in from Delta,” Namir said. His lips were chapped and his throat was raw with cold. Under his jacket, he was sweating. “What’s our status?”

The man rose on his toes over the trench wall and fired a volley of bolts before answering.

“Most of the transports made it out, but that shield’s going down any second. Last word from the command center was to fall back and finish evac—all troops, all positions.”

No point staying for a losing battle
, Namir thought. But one part troubled him. “What do you mean,
last word
?”

“Walker took a few shots at the base. We think command got hit.”

Namir swore, waved for Roja and Beak to follow, and left the colonel behind. The other passengers from the Juggernaut had already dispersed with the certainty and discipline of professional soldiers.

The interior of Echo Base was as chaotic, in its own way, as the battlefield. Lights flickered and klaxons rose and died haphazardly. Tunnels had partly collapsed, leaving chunks of stone and ice piled atop generators and tubing and, in some cases, bodies. The sound of settling and crackling snow all around promised more collapses to come. And though the base was emptier than Namir was used to, distant footsteps and blaster shots resonated throughout.

Namir led the way toward the command center, picking his way through the rubble where he could and doubling back to find alternative paths when he had to. As the group crossed an intersection leading toward the hangars, Roja hesitated and asked if they’d be better off sending someone to prep the shuttle. Namir thought about it and shook his head.

“If we split up in this mess, there’s a good chance we’ll never find each other. We locate Howl. We leave this planet together.”

Roja nodded somberly. Beak offered an approving, profane oath. Namir hoped he wasn’t dooming them all.

The main corridor to the command center had once been reinforced with metal beams. Now the beams and much of the ceiling filled the tunnel at an angle. No lighting fixtures remained intact. Namir peered into the darkness, waved for Roja and Beak to hold position, and clambered through. When he emerged on the other side of the wreckage he immediately barreled into another form—a woman, by the sound of her curses. She faced away from Namir, half crouched and dragging something as she shuffled backward.

The woman glanced behind her for only a moment. Namir recognized the angle of her jaw, her black hair threaded with gray and white.

“I could use a hand, Sergeant,” Chalis snapped.

Namir felt irritated for reasons he couldn’t entirely justify. “What are you doing?” He edged around Chalis, scraping his back against the wall, to look down at her burden: Captain Micha Evon, unconscious on the floor. His temple was bleeding. His face was encrusted with dirt and his chest was covered in snow.

“What does it look like?” Chalis returned. She scowled and tried to prop Howl up, hefting him under his shoulders. “I wasn’t about to let Micha die.”

The words didn’t register until Namir had already grabbed Howl’s waist, lifted him so that Chalis could work her way back through the half-collapsed corridor. Maybe the governor wasn’t without heart after all.

Or maybe she just wanted someone in her debt.

Roja and Beak took Howl together when Namir and Chalis emerged from the tunnel. Roja asked the obvious questions and Beak shushed him as they started toward the hangar. Namir took the lead, rifle at the ready; Chalis followed barely a step behind him. Her forehead gleamed with sweat and her eyes were wide, overanxious. When a blaster shot echoed, he saw her flinch.

“We can circle around the east end,” Chalis said. “We’re in no shape for a fight.”

Namir glanced back at Roja, Beak, and Howl, then down toward the nearest intersection. Another blaster shot. He couldn’t tell how far they were from the source.

“Stay here. Give me two minutes to scout,” he said. “We can take down a stormtrooper squad if we prep.”

Chalis laughed—an ugly, barking sound. Namir had heard fresh meat make the same noise before a battle. It was the sound of imminent panic, of wild fear and self-doubt.

It was unlike Chalis. During the raid on the freighter she’d stayed calm and callous even during the firefights. On Haidoral Prime, she’d spat on the bodies of the dead.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Chalis just shook her head. Namir repeated the question, leaning in close, trying to demand her attention. Finally she looked up, lips twisted into a bleak and bitter smile.

“Those aren’t just stormtroopers,” she said. “They’re from the Five-Oh-First Legion. Darth Vader’s personal legion.”

“Meaning what? Vader’s here?”

Chalis squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. “His shuttle landed ten minutes ago. He’s coming for me.”

Roja said something Namir ignored. He bit his lip, glanced down the corridor again, then straightened. “If we run into Vader, we shoot him. But we have to keep moving.”

Beak was protesting now, too. Namir slipped away down the corridor, body close to the wall and rifle cradled to his chest. He didn’t have the time or patience for rebel—or Imperial—superstitions. The longer they remained on Hoth, the more difficult it would be to escape the base, let alone pass any blockade the Empire was hardening in space.

For all his arguments with Howl, he suspected the captain would have agreed.

The base seemed almost haunted. Its corridors were deserted, yet the sounds of movement and blasters and crumbling ice stalked Namir as he turned corners, sought any clue to the attackers’ location. He didn’t know the base well enough to anticipate an enemy’s path, or where thin walls might allow demolition teams to enter. All he could do was engrave the tunnels—as they endured now, not as they’d been before the battle—in his memory and try to plot a path to the hangar.

He decided to turn back and rejoin his team when he reached a pitch-black passageway that should have led directly to his goal. A chill breeze wafted out of the darkness; enough evidence to persuade him that the hangar doors were open. As he pivoted, the toe of his boot nudged a soft pile on the ground and he nearly tripped. Catching himself in a crouch, he recognized the pile as Kryndal’s snout-nosed alien companion from the mess hall.

The alien was dead, its body rapidly cooling. Namir rolled it over on the ice, saw a blaster hole burned through its chest. But that told him nothing beyond what he already knew: The Imperials were in Echo Base.

He didn’t mention the dead alien when he returned to his team and waved them after him. As they moved together, he heard Roja telling Chalis, “If anything happens, your job is to protect Howl. We’ll keep you two safe.”

At the murky passageway, Namir flipped a switch on his rifle to activate the light mounted below the barrel. The dim arc swam with motes of dust and frost tumbling in the breeze. It guided them over rubble and three more corpses.

Namir didn’t recognize two of the bodies, but the third, at a glance, resembled Kryndal. He didn’t stop to be sure.

“They’ve been through here already,” Roja said.

“One wave,” Chalis said. “Don’t assume there won’t be a second.”

Suddenly the corridor began to tremble. The ground shook without lurching, enough to force Namir to his knees. Shards of ice rained from the ceiling, striking painful blows along his spine. Behind the aching moans of stone was the rumble of an explosion from down the passage.

When the shaking ended, Namir saw a second light. Something had opened down the way.

The hangar wasn’t more than a hundred meters ahead of them. Whatever happened next, they’d be able to run for safety. Namir glanced back at his comrades, saw that they were unharmed, and then looked to Howl. Chalis was bent forward over his body; she was breathing heavily, but she’d taken the blows of the falling debris for him.

She raised her head. Her eyes were wide with terror.

Namir turned back down the corridor. The light at the far end had been blotted out by six humanoid figures. Five of them were dressed in white, like ghosts, and they glided forward across the ice and rubble as if they’d been trained in Echo Base’s own devastated hallways.

Flanked by the five stormtroopers was a figure in black.