Despite the cold and the hardships, I liked Hoth. It took me a few days to get accustomed to all the people—it was three years since I had been part of more than a three-man team. I spent my working shifts in the command centre. I liked it, mainly because it was less cold than anywhere else. My time off was spent with Vega and her friends among the other workers in comm and the pilots, or with the Princess, in the rare moments when she wasn't working. How she managed to do so much is a mystery; she seemed to be everywhere at once, doing her own job of administration and command and anyone else's who needed replaced. I was part of her second rank of friends. The first rank was the most famous friendship on the base, known jokingly as 'the Millennium Falcon team' ever since their arrival at Yavin IV with the Death Star schematics. However many other friends they might have, they always gravitated back together. I often saw the four heads clustered round a table in the messhall—Chewbacca's large, furry one, Han Solo's scruffy brown one, Luke Skywalker's sandy mop, Leia's smooth dark head with its crown of plaits. Without knowing it, they erected an invisible barrier around themselves.
I tried not to be jealous of what they had, but I envied their camaraderie, the more so as I was missing Ari more than ever. I missed the way he could always make me smile, I missed his messy hair, I even missed the way he left breadcrumbs in the galley after breakfast. I envied Tycho and Vega their relationship.
If I had been so inclined, I could probably have managed a love affair of my own. Hoth's personnel were significantly skewed towards the human, male potion of the population. I received more casual male attention in a few months than I had in all my previous years. But I was too unsure of myself, too raw after Ari, and missing him too much.
I had long ago—even before I left school—divided men into three categories: Elderly, Non-human and Married—out of the running, Young and Desperate—beware clumsy advances, and Cynical Womaniser—keep at arm's length. There had been a fourth category, called simply 'Ari' that I had no idea what to do with. Princess Leia's three friends fell more or less into each of my three categories—at least, Chewbacca and Solo slotted neatly into Non-human and Cynical Womaniser, respectively. Luke Skywalker should have fit into Young and Desperate, but he did not quite. Young certainly, but not exactly desperate. He was different, somehow. Not just in his unlikely heroism. He had something about him of Leia's bright spirit, though without the resolute will that drove her. To my eyes, he was closer to Leia than Solo was. Not in any overtly romantic way, but they had an easy, friendly companionship, without any of the explosive arguments frequent between Leia and Han Solo. Their base-rocking fights provided much of the drama of my circle of acquaintance, the humour being provided by the Rogues, who, according to Vega, had the highest proportion of both handsome pilots and strange personalities in the Alliance.
A typical evening in Echo Base was something like this. Myself, Vega, and a couple of the other communications officers had joined the Rogues in one of the few places in the base that ever rose above freezing, a lounge next to the power generators. A desultory sabacc game was going on, and some mildly intoxicating drinks were circulating. Wedge and Dack came in, a little late.
"Fireworks down by the South entrance," Wedge announced. "Solo and the Princess are at it again."
"What, again?" Tycho said incredulously.
"Ha! I win! Pay up, Janson!" Hobbie whooped. Samoc Farr, who had been chatting with her sister Toryn in a corner, leaned over to Wedge.
"What rating?"
"Um...six, I think," Dack said.
"Maybe a six-and-a-half," Wedge corrected.
"That bad?" Tycho said, wincing dramatically.
"Is this on a scale of one to ten?" I asked.
"Yeah, but we're saving ten for if they actually kill each other. I don't think there's ever been a nine, either."
"I saw an eight once," Wes said. "It put years on me."
"That's impossible," Tycho goaded.
"Hey," Wedge exclaimed, "think if we exposed Wes to long bouts of Han and the Princess fighting, we could bring him up to a mental age of thirteen or so?"
"Nah," Tycho, Samoc and Hobbie chorused. Janson spluttered indignantly.
"Shht!" Vega warned as Luke Skywalker appeared in the doorway. Wes broke the momentary silence by announcing dramatically, "Silence falls as the young Rebel hero enters the—ow!"
He broke off as the young Rebel hero clouted him round the back of the head and leaned over him to peer into the sabacc pot.
"Ration bars?"
"We're playing to lose," Hobbie assured him. "Want dealt in?"
"Surely there's an easier way to get rid of them, like feed them to a taun-taun or something?"
"Probably poison the brutes," Hobbie said mournfully, shaking his head. Luke's eyes widened, and he exclaimed, "Hobbie, you're a genius! No more taun-taun patrols!"
And thus hilarity was restored.
Seventhmonth 1103
Of course, Hoth wasn't all hilarity. We seemed to have a chronic shortage of rations and equipment. In the last month, our staple diet was tuberroot, in a variety of forms. We were permanently cold. And then there was Alderaan Remembrance Day. Ari and myself had never noted the anniversary particularly, for neither of us was the sort of person to whom dates were important. The Alliance marked the day with mourning, as I found out. One afternoon I stuck my head round the door of the ready room to find Tycho ranting to Wedge and Luke.
"Luke, General Rieekan's after those reports—just giving you a heads-up," I announced.
"Hell, no," Wedge yelped. "Luke—"
"—I mean, what do they expect?" Tycho was pronouncing. Luke's fair head was bent over what looked to be the duty roster; he had his hands over his ears.
"Uh-huh...well, what am I meant to do about it?"
"Do the reports?" I suggested patiently.
"Not you, I meant Tycho...Farr, Ralter, Skywalker..."
"You're her best friend," Tycho said.
"...Antilles, Farr...oh blast, that's Sam twice...and you think that means I can stop her from doing something she feels is her duty? Thanks, Keitin. Wedge, shut up, I'm trying to do three things at once already."
"What do you think about it?" Tycho asked me.
"What, Luke's inability to produce a report on time? Tycho, I don't have the first clue what you're talking about."
"Oh, yeah—Alderaan Remembrance Day. Basically we all gather round and the Princess and a few other people make speeches and we have a minute's silence and are very gloomy generally."
He sat down on the table in the midst of the duty roster. Luke groaned.
"And Tych's trying to make me make her not to," he said.
"Well, that's pointless enough," I said, sitting on the part of the table Tycho wasn't occupying. "I mean, it's Leia."
"Don't tell me, I know. Here, Wedge, finish that, will you?" He held out the duty roster. Wedge protested.
"I'm delegating," Luke said cheerfully. "And if you give me anything too horrible I'll put ice in your bunk."
"I just don't think it's fair that she has to do it," Tycho persisted.
"Nope," Luke agreed, "it isn't. It's not that I don't care, because I do, but like Keitin said, it's Leia. There's not really a lot I can do about it."
"You'd think seeing it first-hand would be enough," Tycho said in disgust.
"Did she? I didn't know that," I said, shivering.
"I was calling my family when it happened," Tycho told me. "I thought it was just the Holonet connection going down, but...I couldn't stay fighting for the Imps after that, so I went awol."
I thought of home. Shamma would have been dead by now, even without the Empire, but I could not comprehend that my familiar childhood haunts were gone. I felt as though Alderaan must still be in existence somewhere, even if I could no longer reach it.
"Were you ever at the lake beyond Lisga?" I asked Tycho. "Do you remember the way the fish used to lie beneath the bank? We went up there when we children, my cousin Dan and I, and saw the sun rising over Tol Bedhrin. Ah, stang—"
"Don't cry, your eyelashes will freeze over," Tycho exclaimed, giving me a hug. I laughed at that, shakily.
"Who's crying?"
-~-~-~-~-
As it turned out, Leia was gone on Alderaan Remembrance Day, on a mission to Ord Mantell. I couldn't blame her for escaping. I wished I could do the same.
General Rieekan took her place in leading the speeches. The ceremony took place in one of the hangars, squashed between snubfighters and transports.
"Are you okay?" Vega asked as we filed in. I nodded hard, because my throat felt too closed up to speak. Vega took my hand, holding so tightly that it was painful. Her mouth was set in a straight line. I dropped my eyes to the snowy floor as the ceremony began. I let the speeches wash over me, not hearing, subsumed in a numb, aching misery that was surprisingly non-specific. Memories of Shama and Dan and Ari and Leia floated disjointedly through my head. How Vega's death grip on my hand pinched...During the silence, I thought for a moment I would faint, because I was feeling so disconnected from reality. I tried to think of Alderaan, but all that came to mind was how cold, how cold it was in the hangar.
And then it was over, everyone surging out of the hangar with respect overcoming relief at being able to move again, locking us all in silence. Tycho, I saw, was crying unashamedly, just a couple of silent tears running down his cheeks. I reached up to touch my own face, but it was dry.
"That wasn't as bad as I expected, actually," I announced to Vega, and almost believed it.
-~-~-~-
A couple of days later, Vega breezed into our bunkroom to announce, "Your Princess is back-she and Solo yelled at each other and stormed off in opposite directions, and young Skywalker's sitting down in the ready room twitching visibly and swearing never to go on another mission with the pair of them. Wes is cheering him up."
"Poor thing," I said. "Being cheered up by Wes Janson is not for the faint-hearted, and you need to be quite cheerful to start with."
It wasn't quite as bad as Vega's exaggeration. Leia and Solo had had yet another yelling match, but Luke was looking perfectly untwitchy when I saw him, merely thoughtful.
"They're mad," he said to Wedge as they ate in the canteen, I eavesdropping at the next table with Toryn.
"We could lock them up and tell them to get on with it," Wes suggested cheerfully. Wedge gave him a look that would have blistered paint, but Luke only said, "I don't think that's very practical."
"Must be love," Toryn said to me, as we went to work. I snorted.