Part 1
Mission Abort + 2hr
14:00 - Malhördhem Local Time
SHERIFF ASHTOR SVIOISAAR, senior law-enforcement officer for Malhördhem and the surrounding area, saved the finished report and sat back. Sighing, she laced her hands together and turned her palms out, lifting her arms above her head and leaning back into a stretch to ease the ache between her shoulder blades.
Her shift had finished a half hour before. A late lunch at Mama Torga's was calling her, but she had stayed on to finish the report.
Ash hated the paperwork, but it was a necessary part of the job: even more so since the Empire had tightened their hold on her homeworld and bureaucracy had increased right across Vaaljajord. Additional paperwork wasn't so bad, she supposed sourly, not when her fellow law enforcement officers in the cities now had to work alongside Imperial troops. At least she only had to deal with the semi-regular appearance of an officious, Imperial officer demanding an audit.
The Malhördhem office hadn't had an audit in a while. Ash wasn't willing to take any chances on turning up for duty the next day to find one in progress before she had filed the domestic disturbance report.
It had been out at the Helgassen's… again. Old man Helgassen had juiced himself up on moonshine, then tried to take a swing at his wife. She'd rapped a ladle off his head for his trouble and locked him in the larder. Then she'd called the Sheriff's Bureau and asked them to 'haul his skinny carcas to jail' until he dried out.
Ash had seen it all before, so she knew that the old man would wake up in the cells with a blinding headache, not remembering a thing. The old woman would refuse to come and get him. He'd tip his hat, apologise for inconveniencing folks, then trudge off on his long walk home… unless one of the Deputies took pity on him and gave him a ride. Markus Fjeldssen was working the afternoon shift, so Ash had a feeling that the old man wouldn't have to walk.
Dropping her arms, Ash pushed her chair away from the desk. There was a blarberry bake and a large beaker of kaffin waiting for her at Mama Torga's.
A tall, broad, dark-haired Deputy appeared in the office door. Seeing the expression on his face she held up a hand as she got to her feet, telling him, "I'm off duty, Sig!"
"You were off duty, Ma'am," Sigurd Arnassen corrected, voice full of empathy. "We've got a hot ship coming in. Trajectory puts it hitting the deck about one hundred clicks from here, in the Forest..."
Ash looked at him, and then swore, rubbing a hand across her face. The Forest of Daemor was the biggest revenue source in the area. The summer season and been unusually hot and, although the temperatures had now cooled, the normal wet season rains still hadn't arrived. A ship crashing in the Forest could spark a fire that would wipe out thousands of acres, and devastate both the logging industry and the Daemor syrup harvest in the Spring.
"The Imperials are trying to raise it," Sig was going on, "but it ain't communicating." He stabbed a thumb towards the holovid in the main office, "Media's already picked it up. Breaking news has it tagged as a Rebel..."
Rebel...
Ash's heart lurched and she swore again. "From that skirmish two sectors over?" she asked, opening the top drawer of her desk and pulling out her blaster and holster. The time frame would fit...
"That's what they're saying," Sig confirmed.
The Imperials had issued an alert a few hours before, on Rebel ships that had evaded capture during some sort of engagement. They had reported one ship destroyed and two severely damaged. Ash, however, knew how the Imperial propaganda machine worked. She had reasoned that only one Rebel ship had been involved, possible two, and they'd avoided a few pot-shots lobbed at them by a Star Destroyer.
This time it appeared that Imperial reports had been more truth than propaganda.
"Have you alerted the Jumpers?" she asked. The local Fire Jumpers didn't have anything close to the sort of manpower they'd need to tackle a big blaze. They'd have to pull in Jumpers from across the area, maybe even fire fighters from the city.
"Kaysix is on it," Sig confirmed.
Ash nodded. The communications droid was the longest serving member of the Sheriff's Bureau. Kaysix had been around long before Ash had earned even her Deputy's pin.
She buckled on her blaster then groaned as she realised that, if it was a Rebel ship, any rescue or fire-fighting endeavours would only be hampered by the rather large boots of whatever Imperial jobs-worth was put in command of the situation. She didn't relish the thought of Imperial troops swarming all over the place: which they would, as soon as they had a confirmed location of the downed ship.
Arnassen was grinning at her. "I'm guessing you just figured that we're about to be swamped by our glorious Emperor's finest?"
Ash shot him a sour look, warning, "You'll need to check that mouth of yours if we do! I ain't fixing on breaking-in a new Deputy any time soon! Had me enough problems breaking you in!" she accused, moving towards him.
Sigurd chuckled and stepped aside to let her through the door. Ash paused as she reached him, dropping her voice to a quiet murmur, ordering, "Check who's able to take survivors. If we get to any of the Rebels before the Imperials arrive, we'll need somewhere to stash them."
"I'll call the Alvessen place, now," he assured her. He began to turn away. Then he hesitated, turning back. "If they're Rebel... do you reckon they diverted here because of us?"
Ash sighed. The same thought had crossed her mind. "I hope not," she told him. "Because if the whole damned Rebellion know about us, it won't be long before the Imperials do and bust us wide open. Now, go! Call Alvessen!"
Sig nodded, turning away as Ash headed for the main office.
The Alderaan disaster had sparked political protests in the Mørne and Ranveig provinces of Vaaljajord, mainly around the universities. The protests, and the events that followed, had polarised the planet of Vaaljajord's entire population.
The speed with which the Empire had moved in, and the ruthless ferocity with which they had put a stop to the protests, had surprised and appalled Ash. Others had welcomed it, believing everything they saw on the Imperial-controlled media: maintaining that the students had brought it on themselves, that Alderaan had destroyed itself, that Senator and Princess Organa were traitors and that anyone who defended them was inciting sedition.
Ash had found herself suddenly wary of people she had known all her life. With the planetary Ruling Council abolished, half the Ruling Councillors in Imperial custody, and the Empire firmly in control of Vaaljajord, accusations and counter accusations between neighbours had caused an atmosphere of suspicion and caution. Even in Malhördhem, the friendly, sociable ambience had changed almost overnight.
It had been Per Alvessen who had approached her about the non-cooperation faction. Per's grandson, Zånder, was one of her Deputies. Zånder's younger sister, Mønaeg, had been at university in Ranveig. She had come home to Malhördhem after the unrest… only to leave again almost immediately.
That's when Per had come to Ash, judging that he could trust her, risking everything by telling her that Mønaeg had gone to join the Rebel Alliance. Her friend at university, a young woman from Alderaan, had lost her entire family when the planet had been destroyed. She had been too grief-stricken to take part in the protests. The Imperials had come for her anyway, arresting her on charges of Inciting Public Disobedience. When she had panicked and tried to run, Mønaeg had been unable to do anything as stormtroopers gunned her down, leaving her body lying in the university corridor.
"Never held with what happened with the Jedi," Per had told Ash. "Never trusted this new Empire. But it was far away from us, and I paid no particular heed to the goings-on. But something don't sit right about Alderaan. And this business in the cities... well... it just ain't right. And now the Empire's closer than I'm comfortable with. I'm an old man, Ash," he had gone on. "Rebellion don't need me for a fighter, but I can't sit back no more, doing nothing..."
Then he had asked her to simply turn a blind eye to certain goings-on. In the end, Ash had done more than that, getting herself involved far more deeply than she probably should have... but she had seen the Imperial lists and knew that Mønaeg's friend was only one of an alarming number of dead, missing and wanted.
A week later Sigurd Arnassen had given her reason to place her trust in him when he had walked into her office, put his Deputy's badge on her desk and echoed her own sentiments by announcing that he could no longer be part of a bureaucracy that ignored due process, tortured people and shot them in the streets.
She'd calmed him down, persuading him not to make too hasty a decision. Then she'd taken him out to the Alvessen's place, where Per had sounded him out before welcoming him into the fold.
Since then, non-cooperation had grown into something more. The trickle of people, who had followed Mønaeg to Rebel lines via the Alvessen place, had become a small stream. The operation had expanded. The Imperial supporters in the area would have been horrified to find out just how many safe-houses Malhördhem had. Places where potential Rebels were vetted before being passed on up the line, or handed over to Ash as Sheriff: who escorted them to the shuttle station with the threat of delivering them to Imperial authorities if she ever saw them in town again.
Now it looked as if they'd have to close everything down for a while. If this ship was Rebel, they'd have more Imperial scrutiny on them than was safe.
Ash reached the main office. Erika Valsaar, another of the Deputies, was looking from the holovid to the datapad in her hand. "What do we have?" Ash asked her.
"We're already streaming info with the Fire Chief at the Jump House. And with the Mayor's office," the Deputy supplied, switching the holovid from the news channel to a map of the area. "On the current flight path, the ship will hit here," she went on as a section of the map turned red, "about fifty clicks inside the Forest. Imperials have been trying to raise it, but they're getting nothing. The garrisons don't appear to be mobilising, though."
"Imperials won't move until they have confirmation of it being Rebel," Ash told her. "Otherwise it's a domestic issue and they'll leave it to us..."
She turned, "Kaysix, call everyone in." Gunter and Lenya were on down-time. Markus and Zånder weren't due on duty until later in the day. "And we'll need an exclusion zone set up..."
She took a closer look at the map, bringing up the coordinates at the centre of the red-coloured area. "Best have surface to five thousand feet. And a fifty click radius centred here, just in case it overshoots or goes in early. That'll keep the media and any gawkers out. And send an evacuation order to the foresters within the zone."
"All off-duty Deputies have been alerted, Sheriff Svioisaar," Kaysix confirmed. "The exclusion zone has been submitted. I will alert the foresters now."
"Thanks," Ash acknowledged then instructed, "Anyone calling about the ship, tell them that the situation is in hand. Anyone worried about their trees, point them in the direction of the Mayor's office for the time being. No-one gets into that exclusion zone without the say-so of me or the Fire Chief, understood?" The last thing they needed when trying to deal with the situation and potentially get Rebel survivors to safety, was to run into a worried forester.
"Understood," Kaysix verified.
"Right," Ash went on as Sig walked back into the office, "let's head out. Kaysix, tell the Chief and the Mayor that we're leaving now."
oo0oo
A shower of sparks erupted from the console above Wedge Antilles' head and he yelped, twisting aside to try to avoid the burning cascade. Behind him, Hobbie Klivian threw off his restraints, grabbing an extinguisher and lurched to his feet. Aiming the extinguisher, he sprayed a burst of fire-smothering gas at the console and over Wedge. The ship bucked, pitching Hobbie onto the floor.
An alarm warbled into life and, coughing from the extinguisher fumes, Wedge reaching out to cancel it. "We're losing hull integrity..."
Luke swore, fighting with the controls, trying to keep the transport moving in some semblance of controlled flight. He was losing the battle, however. The ship had taken too much damage. Deep in his gut he knew that the transport wasn't going to survive the descent to the surface.
Still holding the extinguisher, pulling himself back up into his chair, Hobbie winced as another alarm warbled into life. The ship was coming apart around them.
"Number three's going critical!" Wedge warned, cancelling the engine warning chime. "Shutting down."
Luke swore again. They were too close to the ground, going too fast and he barely had control of the ship. They needed that third engine. "Tarn!" he ordered, "Make sure Artoo, Derlin, and his people are strapped in. This is going to be a hard landing..."
"You're flying!" Tarn Mison quipped, unlocking his restraints, "What's new?" Lurching to his feet, he headed for the flight deck hatch.
"Wedge, take the ship!" Luke ordered.
Wedge glanced over at him, confirming. "I have control! You got an idea?"
"Maybe…" Luke replied, unlocking the seat restraints. It was taking two people to fly the disintegrating ship... but he also knew that they were fighting a losing battle. He could help. He could use the Force to slow their erratic descent, but he would need his entire focus to do it. "We're not going to make it like this! Hobbie, take the seat!"
Glancing at Wedge then Luke and cursing, Hobbie dropped the extinguisher and tried to stand: only to land back on the floor as the ship veered and rocked. Another alarm warbled into life.
"Damn it!" Wedge announced. "Number two's running hot!"
Luke flipped off the restraints, pushing himself out of the seat.
Crawling the short distance to the pilot's seat Luke was vacating, Hobbie dragged himself up into it, cancelling the alarm... but another mewled into life. "We've lost the lateral stabilizer..." There was no way they could control the ship now. Hobbie glanced at Wedge. Antilles was fighting the pitch, but he was losing the battle. "We're going down..."
"Not if I can help it!" Luke countered, stumbling as the ship bucked, landing unceremoniously on the floor. Closing his eyes, calming the fear in his chest, he took a long, deep breath. He reached out through the Force; past the tumbling, erratic movement of the transport that left him dizzy and disoriented for a moment... until he sensed the gravity of the planet. He reached for it, holding onto it, letting the ship move around him as he used gravity as an anchor.
He could feel the weight of the ship. The rushing air of the planetary atmosphere pushed at him along the length of the hull. He could feel the skin of the ship beginning to peel away, could sense the stress fractures that crept slowly across the outer hull.
Forcing down the rising dread, he took a slow, deep breath: then another.
He had never attempted anything like this before, but he had no choice. The transport wasn't going to reach the surface in one piece: it was going to break up in mid-air. If he didn't try to slow the ship, everyone on board was going to die. And if Artoo was damaged, the information they'd retrieved from the Imperial facility on Dendraali would be lost.
A memory rose up in his mind: of his T-65 rising slowly out of the waters of the swamp and gliding gracefully through the air.
I don't believe it...
That is why you fail... Always with you it cannot be done... Yoda's voice spoke clearly in his mind. The Force surrounds us, binds us. Feel the Force around you. Everywhere... even between this land and that ship...
Between the land and the ship... Between the planet and the ship... The memories strengthened his resolve. Feel the Force... between this land and that ship...
Feel the Force...
Luke pushed out... The planet's surface was close... too close... terrifyingly close...
Anger... fear... The dark side of the Force are they...
Swallowing, Luke took a long, deep breath, calming his terror. Then he reached out through the Force, through the energy that bound the galaxy together... and pushed against the planet's surface. The ship's tumble began to lessen; the rushing air against the hull began to diminish; the relentless creep of the stress fractures began to slow...
But they were still going too fast...
The Force flowed through him, filling him. He was a conduit between the ship and the planet. He pushed against both, using the planet as a constant fixture to slow the ship and calm the yawing tumble. The movement of the ship around him began to lessen, the rush of the atmosphere slowly decreased. Below him, the dark green of the planet's surface resolved into dense forest that reached up towards him.
The ship began to glide...
But they were still going too fast. At this speed the impact would be devastating.
Luke drove further into the Force, drawing on it more deeply than he had ever done before... pulling in a breath of wonder as he realised he could sense the luminous energy within the trees. It was almost tactile: vibrant and living. He smiled at the beauty of it, drawing on it, feeling the ship slow even more.
The trees rushed up at him. The ship's fin drove down into them.
Too fast...
The impact of the ship's hull against the massive boughs shocked up through Luke. The Force energy slammed into him with paralysing strength. He was aware, briefly, that the ship was breaking up; knew that he was tumbling through the air, but he could do nothing to stop the fall.
The impact of his body against the branches of a tree drove the breath out of his lungs. He crashed down through a bough, then another. Bright, white light exploded in his head. Then darkness swept in.
oo0oo
In the sudden silence that followed the cacophony of tearing metal and cracking wood, Major Bren Derlin heard someone groan. He opened his eyes.
It took him a long moment to understand what he was seeing. The flight deck was gone. Instead, there were bushes and shrubs, the trunk of a huge tree... and the acrid smell of burned metal and melted wiring...
He was still strapped into the seat. The ship had come to rest lying almost on its side, the floor sloping up at a steep angle.
Someone groaned again.
Derlin mentally checked himself over. His shoulder ached where the restraint was digging into it, and he had a feeling that both his shoulder and neck would stiffen up later, but otherwise he appeared uninjured. Twisting around as best he could, he inspected what was left of the Rebel transport. There was an empty seat beside him… Then another empty seat where Tarn Mison should have been...
The pilot had only just sat down to strap in when the ship hit the ground. He'd obviously not had time to lock his restraints into place.
Swearing softly, Derlin looked behind, to where his assault team should have been sitting. There were only two rows of seats behind him, then forest. The cabin had broken in two. Half the team were missing. The five troopers behind him were still strapped into their seats. Raimik, Gelnara and Dune were already trying to undo their restraints. Behind them, Derlin could see Basun moving, but Lien was slumped in her seat.
"Report!" Derlin ordered.
Dune looked at him, flashing him a grin. "I'm okay." The clip on her restraints popped open and she pushed them back off of his shoulders.
Raimik nodded as he struggled with the clip. Gelnara confirmed, "I'm okay, Major."
"I'm in one piece, Major," Basun's deep baritone rumbled from the row behind.
"How's Lien?" Derlin asked him.
Basun turned, looking at the woman beside him. He checked the pulse on her neck then sighed, "Don't think she made it."
Raimik turned to look, then climbed over the back of his seat to Lien. There was lethal-looking shard of metal in the side of her skull where part of the collapsed roof must have hit her. He checked her pulse then shook his head, confirming, "She's gone, Major."
Derlin swore softly. "Leave her where she is for the moment," he ordered. "We need to find Mison... and the rest of the ship..."
"Basun," Raimik warned, "you're bleeding. Right shoulder. Let me take a look before you move."
"Be careful!" Derlin ordered. "Everyone be careful!"
Unbuckling his restraints, he shrugged them off, wincing as his shoulder protested the movement. Then, carefully, he slid out of his seat to sit on the floor. Holding onto the leg of the chair with one hand, he inched down the sloping floor to the edge of the cabin. Pushing himself to his feet, he made his way cautiously towards the break in the ship, where the flight deck should have been.
It was an easy jump down onto the forest floor outside, but Derlin hesitated. There were bits of wreckage and branches strewn across the area. He had no idea what he would be jumping into. He could impale himself on debris, or land awkwardly and break his ankle.
"I think we made a mess," Dune commented softly from behind him.
"Yeah," Derlin told her, turning, "Give me hand to climb down there."
Dune took a tight grip of Derlin's offered hand then braced her feet. Standing at the edge of the broken hull, Derlin lowered one foot to the forest floor, keeping the other foot braced against the side of the ship, ignoring the pain from his shoulder. Once he knew he was standing on firm ground, he brought his other leg down. Dune kept a hold of him until she saw he was on a steady footing, then let go.
Derlin turned around, surveying the area. The forest floor was littered with wreckage, some of it smouldering gently. There were huge branches, too, that had obviously been broken off as the ship crashed through the trees. He moved forward, carefully, to see around the massive trunk of the tree that the ship rested against. A few yards away, beneath one of the larger boughs, lay the remains of the front of the ship.
"I can see the flight deck..." Derlin told Dune, turning back to look at her. Gelnara was standing beside her.
"Raimik?" Derlin called. "How's Basun doing?"
"Deep gash in his shoulder," the sergeant called back. "I'm trying to stop the bleeding..."
Derlin considered that then ordered, "Stay with him while we check the flight deck!"
"Copied, Major!" Raimik confirmed.
"Any sign of Artoo?" Derlin asked.
"No," Gelnara confirmed.
Derlin swore, softly. Artoo was the most important part of the team. The information he had downloaded in the Dendraali facility was crucial. "Okay, let's search." He helped Dune then Gelnara climb to the ground. Cautiously, the three Rebels clambered their way across branches and wreckage towards the remains of the flight deck.
Dune followed Derlin over a branch then hesitated as something caught her attention. "Major!" she called, taking a closer look at the forest floor. There was hint of grey beneath the gold and brown leaves. Together, the three soldiers manoeuvred the branch out of the way.
On the forest floor, Tarn Mison lay on his side, broken and bloodied. Derlin dropped into a crouch beside the pilot knowing that he wasn't going to find a pulse and, even if by some miracle the pilot was still alive, they didn't have the medical equipment or knowledge to help him.
Mison was still warm, but there was no sign of life beneath Derlin's fingers. Saying nothing, simply shaking his head to confirm that the pilot was dead, Derlin stood up.
How many others had they lost in the crash? Were the rest of the strike team, and the other pilots, also dead?
He turned around, looking over at the wreckage of the flight deck. The damage was screened by the gold-brown leaves of the huge branch lying across it. "Skywalker?" Derlin shouted, starting towards it again. "Antilles? Artoo?"
A muffled shout spurred all three soldiers on. A head appeared through the leaves. Derlin recognised the dark hair of the pilot. Antilles...
"Major," Wedge told him. "I need help in here. Hobbie's trapped..."
"Are you okay?" Derlin asked, reaching him. The pilot's face was scratched but Derlin couldn't see the rest of him because of the tree branch.
"I'm fine," Wedge assured him, "but Hobbie's legs are trapped. I can't get him out."
"What about Skywalker?"
"Not here," Wedge told him, grimly. "Just Hobbie..."
Then where was Skywalker?
"Dune," Derlin ordered, "you're with me. Gelnara see if you can…"
He trailed off, looking around as the soft, wailing buzz of an engine filtered through the trees.
"Landspeeder?" Dune ventured.
"More likely a speeder bike," Gelnara offered, "Easier to get through the trees…"
"Whatever it is," Derlin put in, "it's heading this way..."
Half his strike team were missing. Hobbie was trapped in the wreckage. Derlin knew he could order Dune, Gelnara and the others to simply break and run: hide in the forest… but he had no intention of leaving Hobbie behind. They'd been forced to leave people behind on Hoth. Derlin had sworn, then, that he would never do it again. More than that, they had no supplies, limited weaponry and no way of communicating with any other survivors, or the Alliance.
Taking a deep breath, Derlin let it out slowly. "Let's just hope they're friendly..."
Dune drew her blaster from her holster. "You should make yourself scarce, Major. We've got this."
"No," Derlin told her. "But both of you take cover. If they're not friendly, you have to find Artoo and get him back to Alliance Command."
