There was a sense of urgency at Echo Base. No one knew when the Imperials would strike, but everyone was certain that an attack was inevitable. And because the Rebels’ energy shield would protect the base from aerial attack, the Rebels knew the assault would come from the ground.
In the center of the main hangar, Princess Leia and Major Derlin briefed a group of pilots. Leia told them, “All troop carriers will assemble at the north entrance. The heavy transport ships will leave as soon as they’re loaded. Only two fighter escorts per ship. The energy shield can only be opened for a short time, so you’ll have to stay very close to your transports.”
“Two fighters against a Star Destroyer?” said a young pilot who everyone called Hobbie. He sounded more than a little doubtful.
Turning to Hobbie, Leia explained, “The ion cannon will fire several shots to make sure that any enemy ships will be out of your flight path. When you’ve gotten past the energy shield, proceed directly to the rendezvous point.” She gestured to all the pilots. “Understand?”
In unison, the pilots replied in the affirmative. Leia knew, despite any doubts, they would do everything they could to make the plan work. “Good luck,” she wished them.
“Okay,” said Major Derlin, clapping his gloved hands for attention. “Everybody to your stations. Let’s go!” The pilots went to their vehicles, and Leia ran to the command center.
Outside the ice cave, Rebel soldiers carried weapons and positioned them along snow trenches, while others loaded power packs into gun turrets. Near the base power generators, troops rushed to set up their heavy battle equipment. And all around Echo Base, Rebel lookouts trained their eyes and macrobinoculars to the surrounding ice plains, scanning for any sign of the anticipated Imperial troops.
Leia arrived in the command center to find General Rieekan with his eyes glued to the comm-scan display. At their consoles, the Rebel controllers were tense, and everyone was trying hard not to show any fear.
Rieekan said, “Their primary target will be the power generators.” He turned to a controller and said, “Prepare to open shield.”
The Rebels’ protective energy shield was opened, allowing two X-wing starfighters to escort a bulky, 90-meter-long transport up and away from Hoth’s surface, leaving Echo Base at least temporarily exposed to the Imperials.
Now all the three Rebel ships had to do was get past the hulking Star Destroyers.
As expected, the two X-wings and the Rebel transport did not go unnoticed as they rose quickly through Hoth’s atmosphere. On the bridge of one Imperial Star Destroyer, an Imperial controller approached his captain, who was regarding the ice world through the main viewport.
“Sir,” said the controller. “Rebel ships are coming into our sector.”
“Good,” said the captain. “Our first catch of the day.”
Inside the Echo Base command center, a female controller kept her eyes on the comm-scan display, watching the three rising blips that indicated the transport and its two X-wing escorts. On their present course, the vessels were heading almost straight for a Star Destroyer.
“Stand by, ion control,” the controller said into a transmitter while she watched the blips. When she knew the Rebel ships were almost within visual range of the destroyer, she gave the command: “Fire!”
Outside the Rebel base, a giant ball-shaped ion cannon made pumping motions as it blasted three consecutive red energy beams skyward. Each energy beam streaked past the escaping Rebel ships and didn’t stop until they smashed into the waiting Star Destroyer.
The scarlet bolts took out the destroyer’s missile launchers and conning tower, and caused a series of fiery explosions to spread across its metal hull. The destroyer veered, then spun out of control. As the Imperial ship careered into deep space, the Rebel transport and X-wings raced onward to safety.
Back at Echo Station, Rebel pilots, gunners, and ground troops were hurrying to their stations and vehicles when they heard a controller announce over loudspeakers: “The first transport is away.” Throughout the base, the Rebels cheered. It was hardly time to celebrate, but the battle had gotten off to a promising start.
In the main hangar, pilots and gunners were scrambling into their snowspeeders, which were lined up in rows with their cockpit canopies raised. When Luke arrived at his speeder, he found his gunner—a fresh-faced, eager kid named Dack Ralter—already in the speeder’s aft-facing gunner’s seat.
Dack turned his head to see Luke and asked, “Feeling all right, sir?”
“Just like new, Dack,” Luke said as he climbed into the pilot’s seat. “How about you?”
“Right now I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself.”
Luke grinned. “I know what you mean.” He pulled on his helmet as Dack lowered the cockpit canopy. With the canopy in place, Luke glanced through its transparisteel windows to look at the other pilots of Rogue Group, who would be under his command. The pilots included Zev Senesca, who’d been first to locate Han and Luke after their long night out in the snow; Wedge Antilles, who’d also seen combat at the Battle of Yavin; and Hobbie, who’d known Luke’s friend Biggs Darklighter.
Luke hoped all the Rebel pilots would survive the day.
Outside the hangar, hundreds of Rebel troops took up their positions in a series of long snow trenches. There was a tense silence among the soldiers as they braced their blaster rifles along the upper banks of the trenches and gazed out over the bleak landscape, watching the horizon for any movement.
They didn’t have to wait long. Small dot-sized objects began to appear on the horizon. The dots were moving in the direction of the Rebel base.
A Rebel officer lifted a pair of macrobinoculars to his eyes. Through the lens, he saw a very close view of a giant battle machine that traveled on four long, jointed legs. He adjusted the view to zoom back and saw three more of the armored behemoths. The trench officer had no difficulty identifying the machines as Imperial AT-ATs: All Terrain Armored Transports.
At 20 meters long and over 15 meters tall, AT-ATs were heavily armored and almost unstoppable weapons platforms. Although the AT-ATs resembled robot quadrupeds, they were manned vehicles, operated from within the command section that extended from the front like a head, and had the capacity to carry up to forty troopers. Each AT-AT command section was armed with two side-mounted medium blaster cannons and two heavy laser cannons that jutted out from under the command section’s “chin.”
The AT-ATs were still distant, but the rhythmic pounding of their lumbering footsteps was already causing the ground to vibrate at Echo Base. The trench officer lowered his macrobinoculars and spoke into his comlink: “Echo Station Three-t-eight. We have spotted Imperial walkers!”
Back at the command center, the trench officer’s report was received and relayed by a controller: “Imperial walkers on the north ridge.”
The snowspeeder pilots responded immediately. The speeders lifted from the hangar floor, raced out of the cave, and flew above the ice field at full throttle. Accelerating away from the base, they headed toward the distant Imperial walkers.
From the trenches, there were now five walkers visible. The lead walker did not pause its advance as it opened fire, blasting red energy beams at the Rebel troops. Fire and ice exploded around the trenches, sending the Rebels diving for cover.
Flying past a Rebel battlement, Luke sighted the walkers and said, “Echo Station Five-seven. We’re on our way.”
The snowspeeders flew low over trenches, where Rebel troops were now firing at the approaching walkers. Luke addressed the other pilots via his helmet’s comlink: “All right, boys, keep tight now.”
The walkers’ heads were attached to flexible armored necks, and the heads angled to fire at the incoming snowspeeders. Red energy bolts whizzed past the evasive speeders, but the Rebel pilots kept heading for their targets.
Behind Luke, Dack adjusted his targeting system to aim for the walker’s forward laser cannons. Dack warned, �
��Luke, I have no approach vector. I’m not set.”
“Steady, Dack,” Luke replied. “Attack pattern delta. Go now.”
Luke banked his speeder to the right of one walker, knowing he was trailed by the speeder flown by Hobbie. Then Luke angled back toward the walker and said, “All right, I’m coming in.”
As Luke threw his speeder into a steep dive toward the walker’s left side, Dack squeezed the triggers for the laser cannons. Luke watched the speeder’s cannons fire and score several direct hits, all ineffective, then steered the speeder between the walker’s left legs and under the machine’s belly. He pulled back on his flight controls to bring the speeder into a rapid ascent over another walker, and Dack fired at that walker, too, without making a dent.
Luke shouted into his comlink, “Hobbie, you still with me?”
Hobbie was, and kept his speeder close on Luke’s wing. The two speeders raced directly at the head of a walker, fired their cannons, then split and flew past it. From his aerial position, Luke made a quick survey of the battle below and all around him. A speeder banked through and away from the legs of a walker, then the walker swiveled and fired, striking a snowspeeder and sending it crashing into the snow.
Luke looked back at the walker and said, “That armor’s too strong for blasters.”
On the horizon, another walker moved up past Luke’s cockpit window. Luke banked and began to make another run. Into his comlink, he said, “Rogue Group, use your harpoons and tow cables. Go for the legs. It might be our only chance of stopping them.” Luke guided the speeder straight for the walker and said, “All right, stand by, Dack.”
“Oh, Luke, we’ve got a malfunction in fire control,” Dack reported with concern. “I’ll have to cut in the auxiliary.”
“Just hang on,” Luke said. He wished he could see what Dack was doing, but the cockpit’s back-to-back seating made that virtually impossible. Keeping his eyes focused on the walker, Luke assured his gunner again, “Hang on, Dack. Get ready to fire that tow cable.”
Energy bolts streaked from the walker and exploded in midair bursts, creating a deadly obstacle course for Luke. The flak buffeted the snowspeeder. Dack was struggling to set up his harpoon gun when Luke heard an explosion from behind.
“Dack?” Luke said. When no answer came, he repeated louder, “Dack!”
But Dack was lost, his body slumped over his smoldering controls.
General Veers stood at his station inside the command section of the lead AT-AT. In front of him, two pilots sat behind their controls and faced a wide, viewport. Through the thin viewport, Veers saw a Rebel speeder bank in from the side and head straight at the command section. The speeder’s cannons fired, blasting away at the AT-AT’s viewport. An explosion rippled across the walker’s windows, then quickly dissipated, causing no damage.
Veers guided his impregnable war machine closer to a line of trenches and fired the AT-AT’s laser cannons. A Rebel gun turret was hit and exploded. A handful of Rebels held their ground and returned fire, for all the good it did them, while the rest scattered away from the burning turret.
When the smoke cleared, Veer and his pilots sighted the Rebel power generators in the distance. Once the generators were destroyed, the energy shield would be down and the Rebels would be completely vulnerable. However, Veers’s AT-AT was not yet within firing range.
Veers’s command console was equipped with a compact HoloNet transceiver, which could transmit and project holograms: three-dimensional images produced by beams of light. The shallow bowl-shaped transceiver activated to display a flickering blue hologram of Darth Vader.
“Yes, Lord Vader,” Veers addressed the holographic image. “I’ve reached the main power generators. The shield will be down in moments. You may start your landing.”
Luke knew there was nothing he could do about Dack. He also knew he had to keep flying and not leave the fight, doing whatever he could to stop the Imperial walkers. If he couldn’t launch his speeder’s harpoon and tow cable, then he’d help another pilot execute the plan.
Luke spotted a snowspeeder flying off his port wing. It was Wedge. Into his comlink, Luke said, “Rogue Three.”
“Copy, Rogue Leader,” Wedge answered from his speeder.
“Wedge, I’ve lost my gunner,” Luke said as he angled back to the walker. “You’ll have to make this shot. I’ll cover for you.” Luke began a wide sweep around the walker and instructed, “Set your harpoon. Follow me on the next pass.”
“Coming around, Rogue Leader,” Wedge replied, steering after Luke. Behind Wedge sat his gunner, Wes Janson. With steely nerves, Janson readied his harpoon gun.
Trying to distract the walker’s crew, Luke flew past the command section’s viewport. As more flak exploded around his speeder, he glanced from his cockpit to see Wedge fly his own speeder under the same walker. “Steady, Rogue Two,” Luke warned another pilot.
Wedge’s speeder had barely passed under the walker’s belly when Wedge ordered: “Activate harpoon.”
Janson pressed the firing switch, and the harpoon launched. The harpoon—tipped with a fusion disk that would adhere to any metal surface—flew straight at one of the walker’s ankles and embedded itself. As Wedge banked hard to the left, Janson could see a thin line of the retractable flexisteel tow cable trailing behind them.
“Good shot, Janson,” Wedge said. He continued banking until he circled the walker, wrapping the tow cable around the Imperial machine’s enormous legs. Janson clung to the harpoon gun and watched the tow cable. If Janson didn’t detach the cable at just the right time…Wedge didn’t even want to think about it.
“One more pass,” Wedge said as he banked around the front of the walker.
“Coming around,” Janson said. “Once more.”
Wedge swung the speeder between the legs of the giant walker, and Janson shouted, “Cable out! Let her go!”
“Detach cable,” Wedge ordered.
Janson pressed a switch, and the cable release on the back of the speeder snapped loose. As the cable dropped away, Janson said, “Cable detached.”
Wedge accelerated away from the walker. The enormous war machine attempted to step forward, but the cable had so thoroughly tangled its legs that it began to topple. It teetered for a moment, then crashed heavily onto the icy ground.
In the trenches, the Rebel troops cheered at the sight of the fallen walker. A trench officer shouted, “Come on!”
But it wasn’t necessary for the ground troops to charge the downed walker. From overhead, Wedge and another Rebel pilot descended in their speeders and fired energy charges at their Imperial target. At least one of the charges penetrated the AT-AT’s armor plating, for in the next moment, the entire walker was consumed in a massive explosion, launching bits of metal in all directions.
From his cockpit, Wedge shouted, “Woo-ha! That got him!”
“I see it, Wedge,” Luke said, watching the spectacle from his own speeder. “Good work.”
The battle was taking its toll on the Rebels’ command center, where large chunks of ice tumbled from the walls and ceiling. C-3PO stood nervously beside Princess Leia in front of a comm-scan display as another shock wave rocked the room.
General Rieekan approached Leia and said, “I don’t think we can protect two transports at a time.”
“It’s risky,” Leia admitted, “but we can’t hold out much longer. We have no choice.”
With reluctance, Rieekan ordered, “Launch patrols.”
Leia turned to an aide and said, “Evacuate remaining ground staff.”
Hearing this, C-3PO did not bother to excuse himself as he exited the command center. He knew every detail of the evacuation plan, including R2-D2’s assignment. R2-D2 was to guide Luke’s X-wing starfighter out of the hangar through the south entrance of Echo Base, then meet Luke on the slope near the ion cannon. C-3PO walked quickly through the laser-cut corridor, hoping he’d be able to say good-bye to his friend before he left the ha
ngar.
As the golden droid entered the hangar, he saw many Rebel soldiers running to their ships. He was walking toward Luke’s X-wing when he overheard Han Solo shouting, “No, no! No!”
C-3PO glanced up to see Chewbacca atop the Millennium Falcon, sitting half in the starboard mandible’s maintenance access bay. Apparently, the Falcon’s repairs were not yet finished. Then C-3PO saw Han appear next to Chewbacca. Han gestured with his hand into the access bay and snarled, “This one goes there, that one goes there. Right?”
C-3PO walked past the Falcon until he arrived at Luke’s X-wing, just in time. A tubular hoist was secured to R2-D2’s dome, and a technician was already raising the plucky astromech from the floor.
“Artoo, you take good care of Master Luke now, understand?” C-3PO said. R2-D2 answered with affirmative beeps and whistles as the technician guided and lowered his cylindrical body into the X-wing’s astromech socket, just behind the cockpit. C-3PO added, “And…do take good care of yourself.”
R2-D2 replied with another round of beeps.
C-3PO shook his head and walked away from the X-wing. “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” he said as he headed back to the command center.
On the vast snow plains of Hoth, the battle raged on. The Imperial walkers fired lasers as they lumbered onward and continued their slow, steady assault on the Rebel base. Another Rebel gun tower was destroyed, then another, and another.
Inside his own AT-AT’s command section, General Veers studied various readouts on his control console. His AT-AT was almost near firing range of the Rebels’ generator. Veers turned to a white-armored Imperial snowtrooper and said, “All troops will debark for ground assault.” Then Veers turned back to the AT-AT’s two pilots and said, “Prepare to target the main generator.”
Flak burst around Luke’s snowspeeder as it hurtled through the cold skies of Hoth. Glancing to a speeder that was traveling through the air to his left, he sighted Zev in the cockpit. Into his comlink, Luke asked, “Rogue Two, are you all right?”
The Empire Strikes Back (Junior Novelization) Page 4
