A/N: Hello, Jedi and Sith alike! Looks like I got one more chapter before the end of the day!
Please review and tell me what you think!
This is at the start of The Empire Strikes Back. I don't like writing the long, drawn-out battle scenes, so I mostly skim those. I prefer intimate moments.
Three years after the Battle of Yavin, Luke and Elizabeth were out on patrol when a meteor-like thing crash-landed nearby. They contacted the base, telling them about the happenstance and that they would check it out. They went over in the general direction of the crash when their tauntauns reared up, bleating like Earth goats in danger.
"What is it, girl? You smell something?" Luke asked his.
"Something wrong, girl?" Elizabeth asked hers.
Suddenly, a wampa attacked the pair, killed their tauntauns, and knocked them out.
Back at the base, Leia worried about Luke and Elizabeth. Han noticed and asked if the two had returned yet.
"No, and they were supposed to be back an hour ago." Leia was very visibly worried for their friends.
"Well, I'll look for them." Han was set in his decision, and quickly bundled up to go outside. It was nearly sunset.
One of the tauntaun caretakers said, "You can't go out this late; your tauntaun will freeze!"
"Then I'll see you in hell!" Han replied before riding the tauntaun out to the gathering storm that came every night.
On an Imperial Star Destroyer, Darth Vader watched as probe droid transmissions came in with the report that they all landed on their respective planets. He smiled a secret smug smile under his dark mask, thinking to himself, I'll find you soon, my son. Soon. I'll find your friend, too. I am coming for both of you.
When they woke up, they were hanging upside-down in an icy cave. Elizabeth woke up first before nudging Luke awake. They quickly realized their situation, and saw their lightsabers sticking out of the snow. They both summoned them with the Force, and the lightsabers went to their respective owners. The two ignited their lightsabers and used them to free themselves from the ice. They fell to the floor, and the wampa romped over to their position. They used their lightsabers to cut off either arm of the wampa before running out of the cave. That turned out to be a horrible mistake, as they ran right out to the storm.
Exhausted from hanging in an unnatural position and from the cold, they both collapsed in the snow. Elizabeth's vines were almost crying out for nourishment from the Dark Side, and began to freeze over. They stayed close to each other for warmth, but neither had much warmth to share in the first place.
Suddenly, the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi appeared to the pair. He appeared to be glowing blue, but otherwise it was as if he was still alive.
"Luke, Elizabeth," he called to the two.
"Ben?" Luke asked, and Elizabeth asked, "Master Kenobi?"
"You two will go to the Dagobah system," the ghost commanded them.
"Dagobah?" Luke asked, and Elizabeth knew immediately what he was speaking of.
"There you will meet Yoda, the Jedi Master who trained me," Obi-Wan continued before disappearing from sight.
"Ben!" Luke called weakly, and collapsed from exhaustion and cold.
Elizabeth began stripping her outer layers to cover Luke without even thinking about her own warmth. Luckily for her, Han arrived and found the two, bodies freezing in the Hoth storm.
"There you two are!" Han called out, relieved. He noticed Elizabeth taking off her coats and interjected, "Hey, you're needing those layers for yourself! Keep them on!"
Suddenly, the tauntaun that Han rode collapsed from cold and exhaustion. Han got an idea and took Luke's lightsaber for a moment to cut the tauntaun open. He put it back before dragging Luke to the open belly of the tauntaun to keep him warm. Luke simply kept saying, "Dagobah system... Ben... Yoda..."
"It may not smell good, kid, but at least it'll keep you warm," Han assured his friend as he situated Luke to be as warm as possible but still have room for Elizabeth and himself.
Elizabeth began to black out, and Han put her coats back on her before dragging her to the tauntaun to get her warm, too.
The last thing Elizabeth heard before completely passing out was Han saying, "And I thought they smelled bad on the outside..."
The next morning, Leia sent out a search party to search for the trio in the snow. One of Luke's squadron, code-named Rogue Two, was the one who found the trio. He brought them back to base, smelly with tauntaun insides though they were. The two frostbitten companions were put in bacta tanks to heal. Han was checked out and was diagnosed as perfectly fine. Luke was the first one to wake up, and Elizabeth took longer to heal only because of her vines, which now covered her entire chest, her shoulders, and parts of her back and upper arms.
Luke noticed that she was convulsing and would have been screaming if not for the breathing system that she wore to survive in the tank. He worried for her and began to grow impatient in her recovery. Leia had to remind him again of her added frozenness with her vines, which were now vital to her survival. Luke wasn't worried about the frozen factor, however. He was worried about the nightmares that plagued Elizabeth's sleep. He watched over her, waiting for her to wake up.
Elizabeth woke up in the bacta tank, and was pulled out. She noticed Luke there again, watching over her.
When she was dressed again, she asked Luke, "How long?"
It was Leia who answered: "Only a few days. Not as long as at Yavin."
"They're worse now. They only get worse. Oh man..." She held her face in her hands in fear, and her vines grew and healed quicker than before.
"Hey, it's okay. It's okay," Luke said, holding her close to his heart, and she held on to him tightly.
"What if they find us?"
"They won't, El. Even if they do, we'll fight back."
The outside of the room was a hullabaloo. Apparently, the troops outside, with Han and Chewie with them, had discovered a probe droid which had discovered the base. The absence of the strategist was a strange sight, and the Blue Leader quickly went to her room to find her.
Blue Leader told her of the situation, and Elizabeth said, "Look to the skies. Keep your eyes there, and get ready for evacuation. Ready the ion cannons. We must be ready for Imperials at any moment."
"Understood!"
Blue Leader went out to carry out the orders before she told Leia, "Contact the other rebel leaders. We need to tell them about the evacuation so they are ready."
"Copy that."
Luke and she were left in the room. "The things you do to get us alone," he remarked before hugging her tightly one more time before helping her up and out of the room. They quickly got ready and got in their snowspeeder. Dak was usually assigned to Luke, but Leia insisted that the two old friends stick together. Besides, she needed to learn the snowspeeder controls anyway.
The two quickly got the snowspeeder out, and Luke told Artoo to get both of their X-wings ready to take off.
When they were out but not signed in, Elizabeth asked Luke, "You saw Master Kenobi too, right? Before we blacked out a few days ago? And him telling us to go to Dagobah? And find Yoda?"
"Yeah, I remember. You thinking of going there?"
"Yeah. Any training from an actual Jedi Master would be better than what we've got now."
"That's true."
They then signed on before they found the AT-AT walkers. Elizabeth remembered something from "The Empire Strikes Back" and helped Luke get the walkers to trip so they could destroy the walkers. Elizabeth and Luke's speeder crashed, causing both of them to quickly get out of it before a walker smashed it to bits. They took a few thermal detonators, their hook and lines, and their lightsabers to blow up the walkers from the inside out. Their mission was a success, as the transports all quickly exited the system. Han had taken Leia in the Falcon, and Luke and Elizabeth quickly got to their X-wings and exited the system. They quickly got to the hyperspace route and made the jump to hyperspace.
A/N: Well, that's all for now, folks! Don't worry, there's more coming soon!
