Prologue
Dawn broke clear and silent over the shattered icy world of Kothus. Tiny rodent-like terthpa scurried across the broken surface of the planet that the day before had been a serene, untouched landscape of crystalline beauty. The world was covered with range after range of tall hills, some of which had melted into jagged plateaus and wide valleys by the steamy vapors rising from the planet's millions of active geysers. Ice covered the upper reaches of the cliffs and the highest hills, and soft powdery snow rested in the broad, flat valleys between the ranges.
One such valley lay nestled deeply in a region of hills so tall that most were considered mountains, and it stretched for two miles at its broadest point. There were several caves on the west side of the valley, and from the mouth of most one could look across the flat whiteness with perfect clarity and see snowflakes drifting down on the slopes of the eastern hills. But not on this morning.
This morning a thick haze covered the entire valley, coming from the smoking ruins of battle vehicles and mobile suits. Blaster fire had carved deep trenches in the hard ground and had melted away practically all of the vale's ever-present snow. Corpses littered the valley floor as well. Men and women, their armor smoking from the impacts of discharged weapons, lay scattered everywhere in groups, some still clutching energy rifles and blaster pistols with dead fingers.
The lone survivor of the battle stood in the middle of the valley next to his huge mobile suit and shifted his eyes to the rising sun as it crept above the northern horizon. His shaggy brown hair shifted as he snapped his head back and forth, his big brown eyes never stopping their search of the area. His mouth twitched in a silent grimace as he looked out at the valley, passing his eyes over his fallen soldiers. All were trusted friends and capable fighters, a rarity these days, but the survivor could not allow emotion to enter into his calculations. He had to stick to numbers. Fifty-three dead, his thoughts said. Including my two Jedi. The Republic cannot afford this right now.
The survivor deliberately reached over and rubbed the insignia on his left sleeve proclaiming him a captain in the Republic fleet. His gloved hand then moved up to his face, where he touched the light gash he had sustained during the battle. He had taken a particularly hard blow that had jarred his head against the cockpit's controls. He snatched his hand away from his face and stood there, thoughts whirling, trying to find a way to salvage his mission. He cut an impressive figure. Slender and well proportioned, the captain stood with perfect posture in his pearl-gray uniform, jacket and pants tightly hugging his trim lines. The top several buttons of his jacket were undone, showing a white shirt slick with sweat from the night's exertions. He had white gloves on his hands, though they were smudged with smoke from the fires he had had to put out during the battle. His pants were wrinkled and worn from sitting in his cockpit all through the night during the furious battle, and his shiny black boots came up to his knees. Belted around his waist, the captain had a heavy blaster on his left hip that looked to be of ancient Mandalorian design, and on his right he had a highly modified Bothan stun pistol. His features were darkly beautiful, and no sign of exhaustion touched his face, though he had been flying for several days and fighting a terrible battle since before the sun went down. His conditioning, however, enabled him to go for far longer periods without sleep, and his huge brown eyes had no sign of circles beneath them.
The mobile suit beside the captain was even more impressive than the man himself. Mostly white, the huge machine alone of all the ships and war machines brought to Kothus stood whole and intact. The suit stood in the shape of a man wearing bulky armor. Its white legs were topped by a huge chest colored blue with a gigantic green sphere in the middle that glowed with energy. Its right arm was blue and white, and it clutched a huge double rifle nearly two-thirds its own height. A massive shield as long as the rifle covered its left arm, its wicked point resting dug into the rock-hard turf beneath it. The suit had large projecting shoulder pieces of red and blue and yellow that attached to huge folded wings that hung behind and reached all the way to the ground. Finally, at the top, the head of the suit was shaped like a helmet with a four-pointed yellow headpiece attached to the front between two glowing green sensors. The eyes of the massive suit also glowed a bright, electric green. The entire machine was an awesome spectacle, truly a monument to the art of war and the ingeniousness of humanity. The captain turned and looked up at his mobile suit fondly and whispered out loud, "At least I still have you, Zero."
Captain Heero Yuy then turned and began walking toward the largest concentration of his fallen soldiers, though he knew none of them would be alive for him to check on. That devilish Jedi had more than seen to that. As he walked, looking off to the sides at the burned dead all around him, his thoughts wandered back over the titanic events of the last decade: Kamino and the clones, Jango, the Separatists, Geonosis, the Defenders and, of course, Anakin. It all seemed to revolve around that damned traitor. I guess I should call him Vader now, Heero thought. He gave up the right to the name Anakin Skywalker. God damn you, Darth Vader. Where are you? Heero's eyes scanned the hills as he walked, searching for his elusive enemy. The Sith had attacked his soldiers the night before with a contingent of clones and slaughtered them all, though none of Vader's soldiers had survived either. Only he and the dark lord had survived, apparently, and now the damnable Jedi and his mobile suit had completely disappeared.
Heero reached the largest cluster of his dead troops, and his lips twitched in another tight grimace. The clones were well-trained fighters, surely, but their effectiveness had been augmented tremendously by Vader's presence, allowing them to defeat Heero's larger force, complete with two Jedi. His troops had simply been outmaneuvered from the start, and the clones had deployed amazing new engines of war and mobile suit models Heero had never seen. Heero's Jedi had not been very effective either, since Vader had left his mobile suit early and slain them both in vicious lightsaber combat. The captain looked down at the corpses of the fallen Jedi and allowed a small sigh to escape him. These were two of the strongest left after Palpatine had started his crusade. That wasn't saying much compared to the Order before the dark times, but it was the best the Republic had left these days.
A sharp crackling noise off to the west sent Heero diving into a roll, and he came up in a perfectly balanced crouch, both weapons trained on the western cliffs. But he saw nothing, and the noise's echoes were fading quickly, raising doubts as to whether the sound was ever even there. His piercing eyes studied the cliffs, trying through sheer will to make the source of the sound reveal itself.
And then it did.
Another grinding crack reverberated through the valley, and the ice along the cliffs groaned as if a tremendous weight were hauling itself up the other side. The grinding crack then became a series of sharp snaps and blows, and Heero saw flecks of ice fly up from behind the cliff face. Then, just as suddenly as it came, the noise vanished and the dust settled.
Refusing to be caught off guard again, Heero stayed in his crouch, even skittered a bit to the side toward the meager cover offered by his dead troops. But then he knew the jig was up as he saw the dark figure appear over the cliff line. A huge, menacing figure in shiny black armor strode into Heero's vision and turned his helmeted visage toward the Republic soldier. And though the cliff was a mile away, Heero knew with absolute certainty that those terrible eyes were looking directly at him.
Suddenly a gust of wind fluttered the dark warrior's cape out in a dramatic flourish, and Darth Vader took a huge leap toward the edge of the cliff. As he fell toward a small ledge Heero saw a small bar of red ignite to life in Vader's hand. The captain took one look at the Sith lord repelling down the tall cliff one bounding leap at a time, and then he ran. He holstered his weapons and sprinted as fast as he could toward his distant mobile suit.
If I can make it to Zero I stand a chance, he thought grimly as he tore across the open ground, dodging corpses and furrows scarred in the turf. He glanced back and saw that Vader had reached the valley floor and was in hot pursuit. And he was gaining.
Heero lowered his head and ran as hard as he could. He could see Zero a few hundred meters distant. Just you wait, scum, he thought grimly. I've got a trick or two you haven't seen.
But in his heart, captain Heero Yuy wasn't sure it would be enough.