Chapter 26: A Beneficial Paradox

Within the base klaxons screamed and pilots ran to ships, and smugglers raised their metal fortresses from the lower hangers. Many of Corellian make, the recruited space vessels were varied in type, quality and strangeness, and paraded out to meet the TIE fighters and orbiting attackers.

Bade the Kel Dor lurched into the command room, filled with revived screens and motley Rebels. "Ground forces, they're here!"

"No!" Han gave him a sarcastically disbelieving stare and quickly switched attention back to the screen he was bent over, manned by Raylsk.

The Bothan pawed a lock of mane out of her eyes. "And if the Death Star isn't here yet you know it will be soon."

"Yes, I know! Chewie!"

"He's at the Falcon, sir." Raylsk said.

"Luke left himself to be taken, commander Solo."

Han whipped around to face Bade. "What?"

"He said to leave him."

Han pushed his chair out from the screen and stood up. "That insane kid..."

Kit ran in, breathing heavy. "Troop carriers dropped."

"Where's Luke?" Han shouted.

Kit stared steadily. "We had talked about this. Skywalker said he was going to defeat the Emperor in the same way he had before--giving himself up to him and fighting inside."

"Last time he got killed!" Han said, not bothering with the fact that that really made no sense. He grabbed the back of Raylsk's chair and poked at the screen. "Where are they?"

"You'd never get out of the atmosphere before--"

"Where are they!"

She traced a trajectory. "Heading out. Looks like to this Star Destroyer..."

Han realized then how many ships were in orbit...three Destroyers so far, one a new SSD. And all those TIEs... "We're going after them." And he pushed his way out.

Kit followed him, and caught up at one of the last small corridors before the main hanger, where static fields around each doorway were placed to keep the snow from being tracked or blown in.

"You can't interfere with his plans." The Jedi said.

Han didn't turn around.

Kit stepped around the human and smoothly blocked the hallways. "You're needed elsewhere, Solo. The ground troops have to have a leader."

Han looked dangerous for a moment then nonchalantly shrugged. "Luke doesn't want help, fine."

"Patra's up there with the Star Destroyers. I need you to go with the ground troops defending the back entrance to the hanger."

Han sarcastically looked as if he were thinking about it. "Outnumbered, risk certain death, against the Empire's best for an improbable cause? Why not?"

Kit moved aside. Han turned back for moment. "And what are you going to be doing?"

"Fighting any dark Jedi who try to get in with lightsabers."

"Oh. Enjoy."

Kit just thinly smiled.

Han really wasn't sure why he did what he did lately. A combination of boredom, friendship and guilt over Luke, a desire to avoid various bounties on his head from beings like Jabba the Hutt and a mild derision for the Empire, all those things could add up to joining the suicidal-seeming Rebellion...but only, Han figured, for someone with less sense and more character than the average citizen of the galaxy.

It made sense to him and Chewie.

So here they were, lying against a snow drift with the frigid wind steadily and carelessly trying to chill them to the marrow, waiting for a brush or two with death.

Raylsk stirred impatiently beside Han. She had wanted to come–"see what it's like"--while someone else manned the control center. He did not doubt just what she was going to see, but he was not going to get in the way of a young leader learning her life lessons.

Chewbacca whuffed and bobbed his head, and there ahead crossing the plain where far in the vague distance lasers flashed, the first orderly columns of stormtroopers broke from their hiding places and pressed the attack.

One group was headed by a human female and the other by an armored trooper commander bearing cape of office and a large dull-metal rocket launcher. Immediately they made for the sparse cover to either side of the narrowing canyon entrance at which the Rebels were stationed, and Han took the opportunity to lift himself up on his elbows and pepper the right side with blaster shots. Two fell, the others gained ducking room and fired back. Chewie had the left, and Raylsk kept her head down and ears back, eyes to her weapon's sight not shooting but tracking everything that moved.

The female Imperial leader possessed no obvious weapon or armor but stood straight behind an outcropping of snow covered rock and shouted militaristic orders while keeping disconcernedly green eyes fixed firmly on the Rebels. The few shots Han put in that direction missed or were deflected somehow--possibly she had a rare energy shield.

The almost comically armored snowtroopers leaned out from cover or dove for fallen weapons and died splayed out against the snow, and tense energy was apparent, growing in the woman leader's graceful body.

More Imperials coming, running in comm silence but with crunching footfalls.

Raylsk had shot someone, a trooper by the left wall and close to them, that Chewie had also hit. She was watching it, the green bowcaster sparks conducted by reinforced plastic leading an eerie glow, but when Han elbowed her shoulder for attention she looked at him with clear eyes.

"Cover me." Han stood up and jump-slid down the face of their natural cover, landing with a hand behind him and the full-power blaster coming up in the other. The first two shots he got off speared into snow--the Imperial woman stood cool and unconcerned--then Han moved forward and aimed again.

To his great surprise and shock the woman came toward him, almost a jump foreword, with a red lightsaber growing in her hands and rising into an attack cut that Han had seen Darth Vader destroy old Ben Kenobi with. Chewbacca roared, Han yowled, backed up and aimed his blaster in both hands.

He felt empty air beneath his feet and heard the lightsaber thrum overhead at the same time, and then felt himself falling and landed against the cold and hard ground of a previously nonexistent trench.

The next wave of snowtroopers rattled into the narrows. The she-Sith jumped the trench and stood for a moment in front of Chewie and Raylsk. Han propped his blaster against the top of the trench on the other side and started picking off snowtroopers entering the canyon. The Wookiee and the Bothan, he fierce and she wide-eyed, saw the woman Imperial pause before them with her head up and red hair flying, as if she scented the air. Then she jumped, again covering great distance in a flying leap. Raylsk turned, but Chewie called for her attention to return. Smoke and snow were rising in that thin place, and Han lost no time marveling about where the clearly man-made trench had come from; he just shot.