CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"Come on, you sons of ciken! Do you want to live forever?"
—Unknown Alliance Army Sergeant
12th Armored Division
Hoth, Outer Rim, 0 ABY
"All non-vital combat personnel have been evacuated, Admiral," Rear Admiral Ackbar's holographic representation reported.
"Understood," Thrawn answered simply.
Akbar nodded, and his holographic representation died as he cut the connection.
"Admiral," Commander Sheplin reported, "our pickets have made contact with the Imperials."
Plasma streaked across the snowy horizon, as the Imperial Stormtroopers advanced steadily. The Stormtroopers were arrayed in crooked lines and firing their blasters at hip-level. The action seemed like something out of a cheap holovid, but the Stormtroopers' blasters interfaced directly with their helmets, and they were able to put down a torrent of accurate fire without even sighting down their iron sights.
Alliance pickets fired their rifles and carbines at the steadily advancing horde of stormtroopers, but they were hopelessly outgunned, and the beleaguered pickets quickly settled for keeping their heads under cover.
Rumbling thunder sounded, barely audible from the picket lines. The dull, booming explosions in the distance seemed unreal on the frigid planet. The sound of the thunderclaps died away, and the plasma-fire from the Stormtroopers continued…until the first shells from the Alliance kinetic artillery landed.
Entire lines of Stormtroopers disappeared, their formations blown apart by explosive thermite shells. Slivers of ice as long as a Human arm flew outward from the points of detonation, shattering against the Stormtroopers' armor, while the pressure waves ruptured their internal organs.
The artillery became a continuous roar, sending hundreds of shells over the Alliance lines and squarely into the massive Imperial formations.
Hundreds of Stormtroopers fell in the bombardment, but their comrades stepped over their ruined bodies without faltering.
Then the Stormtroopers hit the pickets.
The Alliance pickets fixed vibroblades to the underside of the barrels of their rifles, preparing to fight hand-to-hand.
The unstoppable wave of armored Stormtroopers crested over the foxholes, and the horrendously outnumbered revolutionaries fought to the death.
The troops of Line One watched the slaughter with stony expressions, knowing they would face the Imperial juggernaut next.
AT-AT walkers, faster than their AT-MA counterparts, had already come close enough to the Alliance lines to begin bombarding the fortified positions with their heavy plasma cannons. Alliance anti-armor cannons returned the bombardment, and an AT-AT slowly fell to the ground after a plasma bolt shattered one of its armored legs.
For a moment the battle teetered back and forth, as the walkers continued to trade blows with Line One, but then the Stormtroopers finished butchering the Alliance pickets and turned their attention to Line One.
The troops in Line One, an awkward mix of Marines and Army personnel, stopped the vaunted Imperial Stormtroopers cold, but only for a moment.
"Line One has collapsed sir," Sheplin reported.
Thrawn nodded passively—it had been expected. "Execute Rolling Thunder."
Paul Sinko listened to the comm chatter from Line Two and the survivors of Line One. Bursts of static distorted the chatter whenever a bolt of plasma flew between his T3-B battle tank and one of the comm signal repeaters set up all around Dorn Base.
His helmeted head poked out of the top of the commander's hatch as they rumbled steadily toward the Imperial lines. Given the reliability of modern sensors, tank commanders didn't need to ride with their head exposed anymore, but any experienced tanker knew just how valuable a real pair of eyes was.
He twisted around, getting a look at the two T3-Bs that were flanking his own tank. They were under his direct command, and hundreds of additional tanks not under his command stretched out on both sides of the three tanks. "Keep it tight," he ordered into his comlink.
"Copy," the voice of the flanking tankers answered over the comlink.
Tightening a tank formation—especially a tank formation heading right at anti-armor artillery—wasn't the sanest move a tank commander would make, but sanity hadn't been mentioned as a requirement in their mission briefing.
Rolling Thunder sent one-third of the Alliance Army's tanks—which had been safely nestled in firing pits in the defensive lines—racing out the meet the Imperial Stormtroopers. Hopefully, Sinko thought, the Imperials were still busy slaughtering Line One and wouldn't anticipate the sudden counterattack. Hope was in short supply.
Sinko keyed his comlink to broadcast to his crew as they rolled over the trenches of Line Two. "Jim, get our turret lined up with that walker on our one-thirty," he ordered.
"Got it."
The turret depressed slightly, and swiveled to the right, putting both massive plasma cannons in line with the Imperial AT-MA artillery walker he'd singled out.
"Fire one," he ordered.
The left cannon jerked back, cracking sharply as a bolt of plasma sped away. The AT-MA's steady steps hesitated for an instant as the driver of the mobile artillery platform saw the bolt speeding at him.
The control room of the walker exploded in a fiery explosion, the bolt of plasma vaporizing the crew instantly.
"Jim, walker at eleven o'clock, same elevation," Sinko said, not even giving the burning hulk of the artillery walker a second glance.
"I see him."
Blaster fire began slashing at the thick armor of the T3-B's, as Imperial officers realized just how deadly of a punch the squat tank carried.
The tank on Sinko's left blew apart as another AT-MA mobile artillery walker sent a shot down its throat.
The turret on Sinko's tank finished spinning. "Fire two."
The right cannon flashed, and the AT-AT they had targeted staggered from the blow. It didn't fall, though half of it's troop compartment vanished in a bright explosion.
Light repeating blasters mounted on the hull of Paul's tank began sputtering, sending bolts of crimson plasma into the lines of Stormtroopers they were plowing through.
One Stormtrooper reared up before Sinko, a captured Alliance PLX guided missile launcher in his hands.
Sinko felt his stomach tighten as he watched the Stormtrooper level the launcher at his tank.
Hoth Orbit, Outer Rim, 0 ABY
"Engineering reports auxiliary power is at sixty percent, sir," a staffer reported, bracing to attention before Captain Wren.
Wren hardly noticed, his eyes were so intent on the tactical board that was displaying the battle on the surface.
"Engineering also reports that main power will be back online in two more hours."
Something in the staffer's tone brought Wren back to the present. "It will be long over by then," he snapped, looking up at the staffer suddenly.
"Yes, sir," the staffer said meekly.
Wren glanced back down at the tactical display. It wasn't the staffer's fault that the blasted Rebel's had disabled the Resolute, but that didn't diminish his desire to grind the life out of the staffer and every one of his incompetent engineers.
He noticed the staffer was still at attention, and he waved him away with one hand. He rubbed at his temples as he kept studying the tactical display. He had no effective control over the battle, and that irked him more than the pathetic rate of progress the troops were making.
He'd watched helplessly as the entire fighter compliment of the Resolute was mauled by the Rebel fighters, despite outnumbering the Rebels three-to-one. Then he'd watched just as helplessly as the Rebels evacuation transports had jumped into hyperspace. The passive sensors on the hull of the Resolute had recorded their exit vectors, but without main power, he wouldn't be able to follow them to their rendezvous point.
Had the Rebels been sufficiently interested, they could have even sent their fighters up after Resolute, but they never did. Anything short of a baradium warhead wouldn't do anything to the tens of meters of thick durasteel armor anyway, and he doubted the Rebels had anything remotely as dangerous as that…no that wasn't quite right; they had Thrawn.
On his tactical board, the blue lines of Imperial troops advanced further. Another hour at the most, he'd been assured, and they would have Hoth, and whatever remained of the Rebel Alliance.
Hoth, Outer Rim, 0 ABY
Paul Sinko's tank exploded in a fiery flash as the shaped warhead of the PLX missile punched right through the front plate. The warhead must have hit the canisters of tibanna gas in the cannon loader magazines, as the tank vaporized a moment later.
Lieutenant Colonel Zeno Walker, the commander of Operation Rolling Thunder, shielded his eyes against the explosion that had been Sinko's tank and swore. He keyed his comlink. "All units, break formation, begin emergency maneuvering."
A chorus of acknowledgments came back to him.
He switched his comlink pickup to only broadcast to his tank crew. "Target and fire as you will. Tim, reverse right track."
"Yes, sir."
The tank jerked as it began swinging to the right.
The left cannon cracked, and the troop compartment of an AT-ST blew apart, scattering wreckage high into the sky.
A Stormtrooper reared up before Walker's tank, hoping to emulate his comrade's success against Sinko's tank. The repeating blaster mounted on the front armor plate of Walker's tank sputtered, and the Stormtrooper jerked and fell to the ground, half his armor melted away before he could squeeze the firing stud of the PLX launcher.
Walker pursed his lips. He'd never seen a battle this chaotic, or one so brutal.
The Imperials were slowly recovering from the shock of the Alliance tanks, and Walker knew it wouldn't be long before they started surrounding the heavy tanks and cutting them to pieces.
An AT-MA walker fired its main, spinally-mounted turbolaser cannon at Walker's tank. The bolt hit Walker's armor at a shallow angle, and the bolt dug a deep gash into the front armor plate, but the plasma dissipated before it could penetrate to the front transmission.
A proton missile streaked away from Walker's tank, slamming into the artillery walker that had just nearly killed them. When the missile exploded, the remains of the walker sprayed outward, trailing vapor trails.
Walker grinned viciously, then didn't do anything as a PLX missile killed him and his crew instantly.