Sixthmonth 1103
Echo Base (Alliance Planetary Base #3), location Hoth VI, was quite the coldest place I had ever been in . Despite my new snowsuit, insulated boots and gloves, and padded jacket with its ensign's insignia, I still felt frozen.
"This is where you'll be working," Captain Toryn Farr waved a hand around the command centre. "You've worked in communications before, haven't you?"
"Yes—nothing as big as this, though."
"You're bunking with Vega, I think. I'll let her look after you."
She indicated a woman of perhaps a couple of years older than my own twenty. I placed her as Thuran, like Rix.
"Hey, Vega—fresh blood. Vega Ha'kritt, Keitin Avram. Your shift's at 0800 tomorrow, Avram."
Vega grinned up at me, pushing back her headset. Her chin-length hair was so fair it was almost white, but her eyes were brown.
"This is where you'll slave for forty-two hours a week—listen to the blether, route messages to where they're supposed to be, patch in people's comlinks, mouth for officers who don't know what they want to say themselves. If you joined the Rebellion for the glamour, now is the time to quit."
"Actually, I joined because my grandmother told me to," I said, sitting down beside her and examining the equipment. "Then the Death Star happened."
"You're Alderaani, aren't you? I'm sorry."
I shrugged. It was better to get that out of the way at the start. Vega explained her work to me, then said, "I'll see you when my shift's done—do you know where the messhall and the bunkrooms are?"
I nodded, being pretty sure of my way. I had just left the command centre when a familiar voice cried my name. I turned to see a slender white figure with a coronet of dark plaits.
"Princess Leia!"
"I saw your name on the recruits list—I wasn't sure if it was you, but I hoped—"
She broke off and flung her arms around me. I had forgotten how small she was—her crown of plaits barely reached my nose.
"You're thinner, Your Highness."
She pulled away from me, smiling.
"So are you. And please call me Leia. We've known each other so long, it's silly to be formal. It'll be good to have a bit more female company about this place. All this testosterone..."
We both laughed as Leia led the way down the corridor.
"Have you eaten? I'm going to lunch now...I'm glad to see you again. How did you—you were off Alderaan?"
I nodded. "I was on Coruscant with a faulty hyperdrive. Stars, but I was annoyed at the time...Ari Oharran made it, too—you remember him? He's in Supply, where I've been since then."
We were crossing a hangar with speeders and snubfighters ranged along its walls. Mechanics, astrodroids and flight-suited pilots hurried to and fro. At one end, a group of bipedal, grey-furred saddle animals were corralled. They smelled terrible, even in the icy air.
"Taun-tauns," the Princess explained. "We haven't enough speeders, and they keep breaking down with the cold. The animals are native...unfortunately they stink to high heaven..."
She paused at an X-wing with its access panels open, a pilot and mechanic in consultation beside it.
"...oh, I dunno. Try it again. Afternoon, Your Highness."
"Hello, Wedge. Engine trouble?"
"Yes—not getting enough power to the stabilisers."
Leia turned to me. "This is Wedge Antilles, part of the aptly named Rogue Flight."
"That's slander, Princess. You can't—" "Wes Janson," Leia said flatly.
"Point," Wedge agreed. Another X-wing came powering in on its repulsorlifts, scattering droids and pilots from its path.
"Heh, Tycho, I didn't know Luke wanted to kill you quite that much!" Wedge yelled to another orange-clad pilot. The landing X-wing settled on its struts. The pilot emerged, pulling off his helmet—a slim figure with a mop of untidy sandy blond hair.
"We thought you were going to kill Tycho there," Wedge called up to him.
"Well, if you will insist on scattering yourselves all over my parking space—"
He dropped lightly to the ground, saw the Princess, and smiled broadly at her. Leia beamed back.
"This is Luke Skywalker," she told me. My eyes widened. "Tycho Celchu—this is Keitin Avram, boys."
"The Luke Skywalker? I thought you would be—well, older."
Taller I had been going to say—he only topped me by two or three inches. But he was very young. I put him as barely my own age, though as I later discovered, he was the same age as Princess Leia. He laughed, his mouth crinkling up at the corners.
"Better than being old and decrepit like Tycho."
Tycho, who had fair hair and a vaguely familiar face, prodded him in the ribs.
"Enough with the insults, squirt."
He frowned at me, snapping his fingers.
"Avram, Avram...Trade and Transport?"
I nodded.
"You're not one of Tad Avram's lot?"
"I'm the family orphan. Was. Celchu—the Holonet operator?"
"Yes. I remember you now, at some dinner or other. You were a skinny little thing with big eyes—come to think of it, you haven't changed much."
"This is turning into a sort of school reunion," Wedge remarked. Leia and I exchanged glances.
"Oh, it is," she said. "Luke, join us for lunch?"
We all moved off, Wedge yelling after us, "Luke, Tych—skip the stew! It's Mystery Meat again!"
"Ugh. What's the betting it's taun-taun?" Luke called back. "Thanks for the heads-up, Wedge."
"Heard the latest, Your Highness?" Tycho asked. "The astrodroids are starting to freeze over on us."
"But they're made for operation in a vacuum. How can the cold possibly be affecting them?"
"I think it's the snow," Skywalker put in. "I spent an hour scraping it out of Artoo last week. Now Hobbie's droid has stopped spinning altogether. Of course, that could just be because it's Hobbie."
We entered the messhall, collected our food and found a space. Tycho prodded his plate of non-descript mush as we sat down.
"I don't know that this is much of an improvement on taun-taun, Luke. What a life! The cookdroids are slowly poisoning us—"
"—the Imps are after us—" Luke put in.
"—we're freezing our, um, toes off on this icecube—" Tycho continued.
Luke, trying not to laugh, finished triumphantly, "—and I have Janson in my squadron! Could things get any worse?"
A shadow fell across the table.
"Oh, look, they just did," Leia muttered into her mush. I glanced up. A tall, brown-haired man, accompanied by an even taller furry sentient, whose species eluded me, had stopped by our table. The man reached over and tousled Skywalker's fair hair.
"Chin up, kid—of course it could be worse. The Emperor could come calling and we only have taun-taun stew to feed him."
We laughed, Leia looking like she was trying, and failing, not to.
"Don't be silly, Han, of course it's not taun-taun," she reproved, though she had said nothing when Luke Skywalker had made the same suggestion earlier.
"Oh, yeah? I'm Corellian—I know everything about fine cuisine, and I tell you, this ain't it."
"Did you get lessons in arrogance on Corellia, as well?" she snapped back. The Corellian leaned his hands on the table, grinning crookedly.
"Did they give you sarcasm lessons in the Palace, Princess?"
My jaw dropped. I had never heard anyone being so rude to Princess Leia before—I had never even considered it as a possibility. On the other side of the table, Tycho was grinning, and young Skywalker was contemplating the ceiling with a long-suffering expression.
"I don't remember 'sarcasm' being an elective at school, Your Highness," I leapt to Leia's defence.
"No, you're right," Leia said mock-sweetly. "But marksmanship was compulsory, so watch your back, Solo!"
"Do I look scared?"
"You ought to be—she's a better shot than either of us," Luke muttered.
"Did I hear the sound of someone sticking his nose where it isn't wanted?" the Corellian asked.
"The only thing that isn't wanted is a loud-mouthed nerf-herder like you," Leia snapped.
"Oho, fine then. I'll be around when you do want me," and he leaned across the table with an optimistic leer that left no doubt about his meaning, spun on his heel and left. His furry friend howled, threw up his long arms and hurried after him, still growling.
"Oooh!" Leia jabbed her cutlery savagely into the remains of her lunch.
"Is it safe to come above the table yet?" Tycho stage-whispered. Luke elbowed him in the ribs, shaking his head, but Leia ignored them both and turned to me.
"That was Han Solo, the most arrogant, swollen headed smuggler to not join the Rebellion."
"What species is his friend?" I asked peaceably.
"Chewbacca's a Wookiee. He has Life-Debt to him—no one would want to put up with him, otherwise."
"Leia," Luke said gently. He touched her sleeve. "I thought you two had made up?"
"You weren't here, you missed the latest," Princess Leia said wryly.
"Must have raised the temperature to at least, oh, thirty degrees below freezing," Tycho put in. Leia snorted into her kaff.
"Glad to be of service, Celchu."
"Any hope of us moving to a planet that's actually warm all the time?" Skywalker asked wistfully. Leia smiled.
"No, you little desert womp-rat, not this week. Anyway, you were cold on Hudsart and Sprix and Neolcu—at least here you have plenty of company."
"Damn straight," Tycho agreed. Leia forked the last of her meal into her mouth, washing it down with kaff. She stood up.
"Luke, Tycho—see you later." She put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm glad you made it, m'lelka. We'll talk again, 'kay?"
I nodded, smiling up at her. M'lelka was an Alderaanian term of address to a sister or a close female friend. Very few people had called me that before, and no woman. When had we become friends? The three years of war had changed us both, I supposed.
"Can you not face that?" Tycho asked, making me jump. I looked down at my half-empty plate.
"I've eaten worse. Not much worse, mind you."
"It's not usually quite as bad as this, but supplies have been more constricted lately. The Empire's getting more careful."
"They're getting worse," Luke said thoughtfully. "Leia and Han I mean, not the Imps. Oh well, I'd better get off to that briefing. See you later."
I walked up to the living quarters with Tycho. Back at our bunkroom, I met Vega. We sat down on our bunks. It was marginally warmer than the corridor, meaning that we could sit still without freezing.
"I saw you hobnobbing with the aristocracy in the messhall earlier—you don't really need me to mind you, do you? Did you know the Princess before? And Tycho Celchu?"
"Not Tycho—I was at school with the Princess."
She looked relieved; I grinned.
"I'm not his long-lost teenage sweetheart if that's what's worrying you."
She laughed, tossing back her short hair.
"Let's not compete for Tycho—you can have any of the other pilots. However, don't go for Skywalker—he's very cute, but the word is he's saving himself for the Princess."
"Like that, then? Number five hundred and thirty-seven on the list of Her Royal Highness Princess Leia Organa's admirers."
"Oh, half the base is in love with her, of course," Vega said. "However, the gossip-mill generally agrees only Skywalker and Solo have a hope."
"Solo? Him? Tall, very rude, scruffy brown hair—?"
"—hot as hell but insufferably arrogant? Yep, that's him. The two of them fight day in, day out, but anyone could see he's after her. The pilots have bets on which one she'll go for. Personally I think she's a fool if she goes for Solo, but you never know."
I digested this information, feeling rather guilty about talking about Leia behind her back.
"Give me Luke Skywalker any day," I said to change the subject, wrinkling my nose. "There's a lot to be said for the quiet ones—and he has lovely eyes."
"Now, don't go becoming another one of the Skywalker fanclub. They get talked to politely, but no further acknowledgement is made. He's a sweet kid, but clueless, and he can break your heart without even knowing you exist. My last bunkmate but one was head over heels. Months I had to listen to her raving over him, night after night. She was pretty blatant about it too—even he noticed after she'd been flirting with him—or at him, rather—for weeks."
"What happened?"
"Oh, he snubbed her kindly but firmly, and she gave up. The poor boy was probably horribly embarrassed. Poor old Syryi!"
I curled my knees under me.
"I take you are after Tycho?" I asked, and she nodded.
"What about you, Keitin?"
"I left him behind in Supply," I said, suddenly solemn.
"Oh, you poor thing," Vega said, and hugged me, taking me by surprise.
"It's okay, it was all pretty hopeless anyway," I said, wriggling away. I was not in the mood for any more chatter.