Summary: If Cassian defends the icy hellhole that is Hoth one more time, they're going to kill him.
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Snow Hell
by Artemis1000
"Cassian's going to get himself killed," Jyn said in greeting as she sat down next to Bodhi, and across from Chirrut and Baze at the small Rogue One table in the far corner of the mess hall. She cradled her mug of steaming hot tea in both hands and sipped on it, giving a moan of sheer bliss at the scorching heat.
Hoth was an ice hell, and Cassian Andor was its king.
Unfortunately, the Rebel Alliance had a thing about toppling tyrants.
"I know," Bodhi said morosely, and rubbed the back of his head. He didn't have a lump anymore, but he hadn't forgotten the giant bruise he'd sported after Cassian's Fest Special snowball hit him. It looked like they put stones at the center of their snowballs on Cassian's hellhole of a home planet, though in Cassian's defense, he'd expected Bodhi to duck. Nobody had been surprised, or doubted his claim of murder snow balls, since Fest had brought forth Cassian. Nevertheless Bodhi had suffered two days of headaches and in Jyn's book he had every right to be grumpy.
"If they want to kill him they have to get in line," Baze grumbled, "behind me."
Jyn's eyes widened. "Oh no… I thought he was banned from starting snowball fights."
"He tried anyway, but General Draven caught him just as he was instructing his team on kidnapping the hostages," Chirrut chimed in, and he, unlike everyone else at their table, sounded disturbingly cheerful. Chirrut was the only one who thought that Cassian's antics were hilarious. He also happened to be the only one who hadn't suffered under them yet.
Bodhi drained his own cup of tea and sighed wistfully. "I remember when we could have snowball fights without hostages and death squads."
Jyn nodded solemnly. She gave his hand a sympathetic pat. "Jedha was a more innocent place."
"I'm not going to kill him for the snowball fights," Baze said, ignoring both their banter and Chirrut's cheerful correction of he calls them large-scale ground battle maneuvers, "I'm going to kill him because he called that kriffing blizzard I almost got stuck in a balmy breeze!" He scoffed. "Jedha's a place of eternal winter and even I say Hoth is a sarlacc pit! I'll show him a balmy breeze!"
Jyn blinked. "You've lost me." This was the first she'd heard of that, though she wouldn't be surprised. Last week Cassian had barely evaded death by Pathfinders after telling them, about to leave on a two-days scout mission full of misery and frozen toes, that Hoth wasn't even that cold. Cassian could talk, he was specialized on urban warfare. Nobody tried to send him on scouting missions in the icy wastelands.
Since they arrived on Hoth, Jyn had learned that Cassian's definition of cold planets started somewhere below temperatures humans could survive. The rest of Echo Base had universally decided to acknowledge Cassian's opinion, and ignore it.
Baze looked just as puzzled. "You came here saying he's about to die. What were you talking about?"
She looked around, took note of K-2's suspicious and frankly alarming absence, and leaned forward conspiratorially. The mess hall was crowded, and she didn't want to hasten Cassian's doom, even if he had it coming. "The wampas," she said in a voice laden with dire meaning. "He's actually going through with the wampa plan."
Two pairs of eyes widened in sympathetic horror.
Chirrut sipped on his tea and smiled. "But you can't deny it's creative."
There was a moment of horrified silence as three people came to the same conclusion who had been enabling Cassian in that terrible idea. And here she'd been thinking it was all him and K-2SO.
Jyn grabbed her empty mug and stood up. "Alright, time to go. Looks like I've got to save our valiant Captain from himself. If I ever figure out who picked Hoth for our new base they'll be short a few teeth."
Behind her she heard Bodhi saying, "we should help," and Baze grumbling, but pushing back his chair anyway.
Cassian was lucky to have friends like them, but if he praised Hoth's refreshing temperatures one more time she would feed him to a wampa herself.
The End