TGP Chapter Four.
Yousa struggled along, dragging the semi-conscious man with him to the tent, hoping he hadn't meant to kill them or something. When he got to the door, it opened for him, Anakin on the other side. He heaved the dark clothed figure into the warmth of the tent and the glow of the lights.
Anakin opened up a sleeping bag and Yousa tried placing the figure into it. As he did, he pulled back the hood and mask.
It was a girl.
Yousa was a Padawan, a very controlled thirteen-year-old boy, who valued meditation more than beauty. But even he had to admit she was beautiful. She didn't look very old, maybe sixteen, with auburn colored hair and a slender face. Her eyes were closed, she was breathing heavily, and Yousa could tell she'd been out there for some time.
Yousa fell backward into the floor, as Anakin sealed the tent once again and the roaring wind was not so loud anyone had to shout to be heard. He was breathing heavily, too. The snow had made for tough navigation, especially at night. Yousa supposed he was lucky he'd found the tent.
"She'll be fine," Said Master Kenobi, having checked her pulse. He dragged her sleeping bag a bit closer to the fire. "but it's good you found her when you did. She needs sleep. She looks like she walked from town." Yousa raised an eyebrow, eating his lunch again. "Town is twenty kilometers, right? That's a far walk."
"Maybe her speeder crashed." Suggested Anakin, sitting down across from her. Yousa leaned over and nudged open her eye. Her iris dilated slightly. "She's responsive. Probably-" But she answered for herself, breathing heavily. "I'm fine, I think. Thank you." She was still breathing heavily.
Yousa moved backwards, then stood and moved across the tiny furnace to sit cross-legged. "I'm Alesha Kro. My speeder crashed, like you said. I was coming to see who you were, sensors picked up a ship descending not far from town." Master Kenobi nodded, then introduced himself and the Padawan. Though not as Padawan, of course. He told her about their family activities, how they planned to go ice fishing and whatnot.
She smiled, surveying Anakin and Yousa wearily. "Sounds like fun. I hope I'm not imposing, but I think it best if I stay here tonight. It's too cold to find my speeder and it might be under six inches of snow already." She looked as though she was not happy to be spending the night in a tent with three boys. Yousa exchanged a look with Anakin.
Master Kenobi, witnessing her distrust, didn't comment. "I'd be happy to take you to where you think you crashed, if you have a way of locating your cruiser under the snow." She held up a small disk, Yousa recognized it as a self-guiding metal detector. "I do, but it gets much colder than it is right now." Master Kenobi nodded, then offered to let her stay in their ship.
Yousa could tell the offer was meant to be tempting, but unacceptable. She couldn't have them turn on their ship and risk the engine having troubles in the cold, or drain their fuel. "No, thank you. I'll just stay in here." Anakin stood up. "Have you eaten yet?" He asked her. She nodded curtly. He shrugged and made his way to their box in the corner, pulling out a Nutrition Pak for himself. Yousa grabbed his, which he'd dropped in the earlier frenzy of someone outside the tent.
Master Kenobi smiled at her, then leaned forward under the pretense of cleaning something off of his shoe. Yousa knew he was trying to detect any ill will coming from her, but it seemed despite her attitude, she wasn't harmful. She yawned, then stretched, when her arms separated from her body, Yousa could tell she was limber and strong.
She laid down on the sleeping bag again, closing her eyes. It might have been late to her, but it wasn't past afternoon in their bodies, so they sat awkwardly for a minute, then they laid down under the pretense of falling asleep. Anakin munched his granola thoughtfully, then went to his tablet. Yousa's tablet made a small sound, not audible over the wind except to him. He saw the message from Anakin.
Mistrustful. Why? Yousa turned off the volume, typing back. I don't know. She seems standoffish. Anakin sniffed, shifting on the ground. He messaged back. We're down a sleeping bag. Yousa replied. I'll take the floor, whatever. Anakin seemed to have no argument with this. Yousa stood up and moved to the crate in the corner that had there changes of clothes. He pulled out a pair of pants and inverted them, the smooth and warm fabric felt good on the inside.
He placed the pants in a crumpled heap by the fire, then laid his head on them, still near the warmth of the fire.
As the hours ticked on, the girl seemed to have nightmares. She would fall asleep, stir a little, and wake up with a groan after a few minutes. Eventually, she seemed to give up on sleep. Staring at the ceiling, on her back. She jumped whenever there was a noise, causing the three men to stop eating granola or scratching their beard.
She didn't seem interested in talk, but she seemed alert. Yousa would normally spend hours with nothing to do meditating, but he felt it was a bad idea. It might give away their cover. Anakin seemed to think along these lines as well, for he tried falling asleep, but Yousa would often catch him looking at the girl, as though she were really a threat.
He saw no weapons on her frame, and in a jacket that tight, he was sure he'd see a blaster. Master Kenobi might've really been asleep, or he was meditating lying down, something Jedi were not known for doing. The silence stretched on for a while.
Yousa moved more than a few centimeters for the first time in a while and the girl jumped slightly. Yousa found a shovel he'd bought secured in a crate with the fuel canisters. He tossed it to Anakin, who caught it mildly. "We'll need that in the morning." He told him.
Anakin raised an eyebrow. "So you decided to get it right now?" Yousa shrugged. "Well, the silence in this tent could be cut with a Wampa tooth so I thought I'd get it now." He used his sharp wit rarely, and now seemed like a good time to pretend to be brothers who fought all the time.
Anakin seemed to follow this train of thought. "Whatever." Alesha didn't give a sign she'd heard them. Yousa tried to get some sleep.
With dawn came itchy eyes and Master Kenobi shaking Yousa awake in the morning, discreetly handing him his lightsaber. "I hid these in the bottom of the Nutrition Paks. Don't let it be visible." Yousa took it, glancing around the tent for Alesha and Anakin. He tucked it into his belt underneath his coat. "They're looking for water. I told them we'd dig the tent out."
As soon as the tent opened, Yousa could see they gotten a good foot of snow since last night. He started to work with the shovel, thinking quietly. He heard Master Kenobi banging around with some pots inside. He looked up at the sun, which was behind a cloud, but still illuminating the white landscape. Nothing had color or definition, except for some mountains on the horizon with some blue ice forming on the slopes.
Yousa cleared more and more, wishing he'd rented a snowplow. He looked up and saw the long black speeder coming straight for them, kicking up clouds of snow and melting some of it with the exhaust from the engines. Yousa could see the black figure of Alesha and the white figure of his fellow Padawan.
He kept at it, as the speeder slowed down ten feet away and came to a whining halt. Anakin hopped down from it and gave it a pat, as though it was a noble steed. He carried a bucket of what looked like water into the tent. Alesha stood watching him. Yousa felt awkward. "Can I get you something?" She took a long, calculating look at him.
"If you're his son why aren't you human?" She tested. He improvised. "Well, he isn't really my dad. He and my mom got married." She seemed to regret her brash accusatory question. Yousa just hoped he could convey what he'd said to Master Kenobi and Anakin.
"I'm sorry." She said quietly, looking at his boots. "I'm... Not easily trusting." Yousa nodded, but didn't look at her. "It's just... I don't work for people I can trust." She told him quietly, before he'd struck the snow again. "But don't tell them I said that!" She said quickly. Yousa gave her a side-eye. "You can't trust them. You can't speak critically of them. Are you a slave?"
She didn't answer. But after a second she pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. Then jerked a thumb over her shoulder, still looking at the ground. "...Just get my speeder out of the snow. Then I can be out of your hair." Yousa shook his head. "I don't know. I think they're making you some breakfast." She looked abashed, at her behavior or having her freedom questioned, Yousa didn't know.
Anakin poked his head out. "Food!" He called, not seeing them around the back of the tent. "Grab me something, okay?" He asked her. She nodded and shuffled off. He kept digging, getting maybe two-thirds done before she came back, holding out a mug of stew and some Insta-Bread. He took the mug from her, slipped the bread into his pocket.
Yousa sipped the hot soup, Alesha ate some bread. He wondered if she got enough to eat. She ate slowly, like conserving. He took his bread and gave it to her. She accepted it without question, eating a little faster. He finished drinking and dropped the mug on top of the snow, then dug the trench out the rest of the way.
Yousa made his way inside, leaving their guest in the snow. He found Master Kenobi washing out the dishes in a small tub of steaming water. He handed him the mug, telling both of them quietly about the lie he'd told Alesha and his suspicions. Anakin made little comment, but Master Kenobi seemed to ponder. "It is possible."
After he was done, they all went out and hopped onto the speeder. Anakin in the front, Master Kenobi behind him, Yousa in the third position, and the girl in the back. They roared off. Yousa watching as the exhaust melted snow in two lines underneath them all, one on either side of the speeders engine. Yousa shut his eyes against the bitter rush of air, not thinking about putting on his goggles before they'd left.
They moved a small distance away, but the tent was no longer visible. Then they stopped. Anakin shouted back over the loud humming of the engine. "This where you think you crashed?" Yousa turned, and saw the girl nod to him. The engine cut, and they all dismounted.
When their feet touched the ground, Yousa's legs sunk four feet, burying him to the chest in snow. He heard Anakin give a cry of shock, but the sound of cracking ice filled his ears as behind him, the ground caved in. The girl screamed.
Yousa recalled the dwellings of the common gray breasted female Wampa. During the cold, they went in to caves, trying to find Tauntaun packs to feed from. They would often stay in the cave after they'd eaten their fill, content with its shelter. But once in awhile, a Wampa would stumble on a cave system. The deeper they went, the closer to the planets core they would get.
Wampa's had been documented living in these caves before, in early expeditions to Hoth. Sometimes, a cavern would be so tall as to be near ground level. Wampa body heat would melt ice, such was their size. If you stepped on it, you might fall through.
Yousa thought of this very quickly. As Master Kenobi turned toward the sound, realizing there were now three on their party, Yousa rushed to the hole. There was not much light. He didn't hear anything... Could she still be falling? Then he heard a whimper of pain. "Please! Help me!" Anakin and Master Kenobi appeared, looking down too. Master Kenobi pulled out a torch. They saw her, lying in a crumpled heap on the ground.
Yousa turned to them and said simply: "Wampa." Anakin's eyes went wide, apparently he'd read the essays Yousa sent him. Master Kenobi looked down at the girl, puzzled. "How do we get her out? We have the climbing equipment you bought." He offered. Yousa shook his head, as the girl gave a cry of pain and a snorting sound echoed up to them, the Wampa waking up. They were nocturnal, it'd been sleeping.
"No time, she'll be eaten before then." You pointed to Anakin. "Get the speeder down there, the harpoon." He nodded, understanding Yousa's plan. He turned to Master Kenobi. "Do you trust me?" He nodded quickly. "Look for nearby caves, see if you can find the entrance." Master Kenobi nodded, walking cautiously until he started to rise in the snow, then he started sprinting.
The roar of the engine firing, Yousa jumped and somersaulted into the cavern, cushioning his fall with the Force, landing next to her. He looked around quickly. "What? Now you're stuck down here! Get out, it'll eat us both!" But Yousa got down on a knee, placing a hand over her mouth. Anakin was doing derby spins over the roof of the sixty foot cavern. He checked her leg, broken, horribly.
Down here was the first dirt he'd seen on Hoth. He'd known it'd existed here, of course, but it was jarring when all he'd seen so far had been white snow. The Wampa was waking up, he could see in the darkness large white limbs shifting. He saw something rise and rise up.
He'd seen smaller Rancor.
It was blinking the sleep from its eyes. Yousa, deciding their lives were more important than their secret, held out his hand, the lightsaber flying to it. The girl, who's mouth he was still covering, looked at it, then at him. He held a finger up to his mouth.
Snow kicked down every few seconds when the back of Anakin's speeder passed over the hole in the ceiling, blocking out the sun so that they were submerged in darkness for half a second. Anakin was using the exhaust vents to melt his way down through the ceiling. He revved the engine hard, spinning faster in a 360 degree drift. Creating a tumble of snow that came down on Yousa and the girl. The Wampa gave a roar.
Yousa pulled her up, bracing her against himself, he moved her to the cavern wall. The Wampa couldn't run, being as large and heavy as it was, but it did come toward him menacingly, swinging out an arm. He turned on his lightsaber and swung it elegantly through the air, just a green light. At his feet, two feet long with a two foot nail, fell the Wampa's finger.
The beast roared, stepping back as red blood poured from it. It brought the finger to its large mouth. The roar reverberated so loudly in the small cave, Yousa thought his head would burst. But something much worse happened. The ceiling gave a shake, and hundreds of icicles were shaken loose, falling to them. They would surely kill him and the girl.
He launched himself on top of her, on his back, then spinning his saber in wide arks through the air. He saw in slow motion as his blade chopped icicles in half, melting them as it passed by, so that the two of them were showered with some water and ice cubes. But the ceiling was cracking, Anakin was finally melting through it.
The Wampa came back at them, and Yousa was sure it would fight through any pain this time. It wouldn't care if he sliced off its arm this time, it would keep trying until he or it were dead. But then the ceiling gave, and the speeder and two tons of snow came down on top of the beast. It fell, howling now, as Anakin's speeder balanced on top of its head. He rode down its body, moving in expert turns. It fell back against the wall, and it's head hit the ice, knocking it unconscious.
Yousa turned off his saber. "I thought you wanted me to harpoon it. But I think I-" "Fell on it. Yeah. That works too." Anakin knelt beside the girl, moaning in pain. "How do we get out now?" Asked Yousa, looking around. Anakin motioned to the speeder. "Harpoon. Meant to pull down glaciers, after all."
He jumped, a boost from the Force, and he was astride. He rolled his back, a practiced motion of moving forward in his seat, and activated the harpoon system. He aimed it, Yousa saw it swivel, and Anakin shot it into the wall. It went in like it was butter, about twenty feet in there, it stopped.
Anakin reversed, pulling the ice. It splintered, spider webbed, and finally crashed. It brought down a bit of the wall, then some more, until it avalanched into a bumpy yet usable ramp. Anakin pulled down his goggles, then held out a hand. Yousa reached up, and with some heaving, pushing, and a little bit of Force moving, he was astride it with the girl laid across his lap. He picked her up, bridal style, and pulled his goggles down.
They moved off, up the bumpy ramp, managing only because of Anakin's superb skill. Yousa held onto her, in case she fell off. She was weak, she clearly couldn't stand or sit by herself. They tore across the snow, finding Master Kenobi shuffling through the snow, trying to find them again. He grabbed on with no questions, and they zoomed back to the tent.
Yousa explained everything when the speeder shut off, about how they faced the Wampa, about how they'd fought it, about Anakin's timing and the harpooning of the wall, as Master Kenobi examined her leg in the tent. He motioned for Anakin to go get the emergency kit from their ship.
She didn't wake up, Master Kenobi said that was for the best. "She'll be fine. She'll need to be cared for though. And somehow I don't believe her slave owner will do that for her. I'll need to tell them I want to buy her. Not the low profile I'd hoped for." He pinched his nose, as Anakin came back in, holding a white box.
"We can barter with the Wampa's corpse. The nails have medicinal purposes. Its fur is warm and good for bedding. It's meat is nutritious. It's certainly enough for one slave." Said Anakin. Yousa nodded in agreement. Master Kenobi nodded thoughtfully, looking at the girl. "Go unearth it Anakin, bring it here. I will depart to town tonight, with the Wampa in tow, and will sell it. In exchange for the girl's freedom."