Chapter 29: Winter Wonderland
Nine months had passed since the Great Exodus, and the Earth was dearly missed by everyone that left their homes behind. Over nine thousand people had been taken off world, the most the rebels could have taken at the time. The vast majority had been brought to planets on the frontier, worlds barely settled by the galactic community, beneath the notice of the Empire. Mingling with colonists already on those worlds, the people of Earth could hide in plain sight. As long as they didn't make a scene large enough to draw attention from the Empire, they could live out their lives in peace.
Once the civilians were placed and safe to leave alone, the benders were brought into the fold. Sent to worlds where their abilities would be enhanced, benders became considerable assets for the rebellion. But they were still relatively few and far between, and so were deployed only on missions where their bending would be essential. Nonbenders were enlisted on a volunteer basis, mostly in support roles for the benders, or otherwise trained to help the rebels in some fashion. Extensive training was required of course, given the circumstance, but it was worthwhile to the rebel cause.
It was easier to train the younger people naturally, having a greater aptitude for learning new things than their elders. Using various technologies came easy to them, though making that technology was far beyond them. A few showed promise in flying small spaceships, if the simulator results were anything to go by. It would still be a while before any of them were flying actual ships, and even then they would be limited to disposable fighter crafts. The people learning those skills didn't mind the limitation, all of them certain that manning a capital ship would be far beyond their ability.
The best and brightest were trained at Echo Base on Hoth, much to their chagrin about living in the freezing cold of a snowball planet. Fortunately they were not required to go outside the base often, only for training purposes in case of emergency abandonment of the base. Otherwise they got to stay in the relatively warm interior of the base, though even there they needed to wear thick clothing to handle the cold. But while it was still discomforting to those from the Earth Kingdom, the few from the Water Tribe didn't mind it at all.
Of all the people brought from Earth, Katara was faring the best of the bunch. The head start she had was paying dividends, learning far faster than her peers. Most of the tools in the base were familiar to her by now, even if she didn't fully understand exactly how they functioned. The spaceship simulator was one of her favorite things to do, having the thrill of the real thing without having to worry about the consequences of failure. She knew she wasn't ready to fly an actual ship yet, but the thought of it was something she dreamed about every night.
Today Katara was walking down a cold corridor, heading for the mess hall when she heard someone on the intercom. "Katara, report to Leia's office immediately."
"Ugh…" Katara grumbled, certain she was going to miss her lunch. "What does she want this time?"
Katara turned around and walked back the way she came, grumbling under her breath about the inconvenience. Leia's office was on that end of the base, kept amidst all the other administrative functions the rebels employed here. Katara saw plenty of familiar faces along the way, said hi and waved to most of them, and continued on her way. She knew these corridors by heart, having made most them herself with waterbending. She soon reached a room at the end of one particular corridor, opened the door, and went inside the office.
The office was sparsely decorated, kept to a utilitarian layout for official business. Just enough equipment for Leia to do her work, everything else of hers was kept in her quarters. Katara saw Leia inside sitting behind a desk, which had a computer monitor and data pads on top of it. Leia looked up when she heard Katara enter, appreciating her quick arrival. She gestured for Katara to sit down across from her, and she sat in the chair and faced Leia. Leia folded her hands and rested her elbows on the desk, eyes looking into Katara's.
"Glad you could come so quickly," Leia said.
"Are you sending me to another planet again?" Katara asked.
"No," Leia answered. She picked up a data pad, holding above the desk. "There is something else I think you can help with."
Katara raised an eyebrow. "Okay, what do you need?"
Leia handed the data pad over to Katara. "Take a look."
A couple of glances were all Katara needed. "Huh… you have some kind of critter problem?"
On the pad were journals taken by several scouts over the last few months, detailing various areas around the base. They surveyed possible locations for supplemental facilities, maybe even additions to the base at some point in the future. But they had found several sets of tracks that could not be accounted for, suggesting a form of wildlife that shouldn't be on this inhospitable planet. Katara imagined something with a thick fur coat and plenty of fat, needing both to survive in the harsh cold and intense winter storms.
"There is something out there, that's for certain," Leia said. "I want you to take a team and track down whatever is out there. I believe you have experience tracking in the snow."
"Sokka was the better tracker," Katara admitted, missing her brother very dearly. "Still, I can find just about anything in the tundra. Everyone in our tribe learned to hunt early on."
"Good to hear that," Leia said. "Assemble your team and get to it."
Katara nodded, and then she left the office. She walked through the base, looking for people she wanted to take with her, and asking when she found them. None of them declined, and some were eager to have something to do. Katara made her way to the base's hangar, the main path in and out of the place, and where most of the winter gear was stored. There she got to see ships moving in and out, most here for repair work, others dropping off supplies. She saw plenty more people moving about, and spotted someone she hadn't seen in a while.
"Aang!" Katara yelled, knowing that bald head and arrow tattoo anywhere. "When did you get back?"
"Just a little bit ago," Aang answered, gesturing to one of the small ships in the hangar. "Luke dropped me off with these guys before heading back to Dagobah. So, what have I missed?"
"Not much," Katara said. She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the hangar doors. "I'm taking a few guys outside to track something down. Care to come along?"
"Sure," Aang said, smiling brightly at the opportunity. "Just let me put some things away and I'll be right back here."
It was only a short delay, and Katara had been patient. Aang quickly dropped off his things and came back, seeing the small group Katara had gathered. They took the winter gear out of storage, putting on thick coats that covered just about everything. In one corner of the hangar was a large pen with strange animals inside, like some weird cross between a camel-goat and a polar bear-dog, which went by the name of tauntauns. There was one for each person in the group, half a dozen of them to take outside into the bitter cold.
Although a tauntaun was no sky bison, Aang still got the hang of riding it quickly. "Okay, let's go."
The hangar doors were opened just wide enough for the largest tauntaun, and they rode through the gap in single file. The cold assaulted them immediately, accompanied by an intense wind, but was kept at bay by the thick clothing. The tauntauns didn't care about the cold, well adapted to the frigid wind, and rode forward as their riders commanded. Still, there was room for improvement, as Aang demonstrated with some airbending. He made the wind blow around them, creating a bubble of calm air that kept the chill away.
Still, the sound of the wind was too loud for conversation, so Katara used hand signals to direct everyone. She guided them around the exterior of the base, heading to one of the places the rebels had scouted. When they arrived Katara climbed off her tauntaun and inspected the place, finding old tracks mostly filled in by snow, enough to tell which direction to go. She pointed to the east before getting back on her tauntaun, and then they rode in that direction. Every so often they would stop and inspect more tracks, following a trail left by whatever creature had been here.
Soon they found brand new tracks, and Katara took a moment to study them. Whatever made them walked on two feet, occasionally using a third limb for balance on uneven terrain. A few strands of white fur in the snow suggested a thick fur coat, essential for survival in the cold, and able to hide in the snow. Deep footprints told of the creature's size, easily over three hundred pounds, and that it could move quickly in the tundra. There was little else to learn from the tracks here, and Katara got back on her tauntaun to follow the tracks further.
The tracks led to a massive snowdrift, easily over fifteen feet deep, or so it seemed at first glance. There was a hole in the side of it, barely visible from most angles, leading into a cave carved out of ice. She wondered how long it took for nature to make such a place, centuries of snow moving and melting and freezing again and again, with a soft center emptied out by the wind. The creature they were tracking had made this place its home, judging by the tracks leading directly into the hole. There was a strange sound inside, like the rumble of a hungry beast feasting on something.
Katara got off her tauntaun and took a few steps to the cave entrance, then looked back at everyone else. "Okay, I'm fairly certain this thing is still in there. Let's see what it is before we try fighting it."
Aang was next off his tauntaun and walked up to Katara, glancing at the cave before looking at her again. "Shouldn't we let someone know we found this place before going in?"
"I think we can handle it," Katara said. Still, it wasn't a bad idea, and she pointed to one of the people still on a tauntaun. "Stay out here and watch the mounts. If something goes wrong, head back and report what we've found."
That person nodded and stayed on his tauntaun, while the others climbed off and walked to Katara and Aang. The group of five walked into the cave together, taking it slow and steady while looking and listening for anything lurking about. A surprising amount of light passed through the snow and ice above them, illuminating the place like it was early evening. The cave itself was surprisingly big, with walls of ice spread around at random, creating a variety of paths to choose from. They stuck to the one in the middle, following the sound of the creature within.
In the largest part of the cave they found their quarry, and they spied on it from around an ice wall. Easily nine feet tall and three feet wide at the shoulders, this white furred beast was slouched over and munching on a fresh piece of meat. It had a pair of horns on the sides of its head, curved inward with the points framing its furry face. The fur around its mouth was stained red with blood, and the creature was nearly done eating its meal. It paused for a moment, looked around, and then went back to eating, unaware of anything in its home.
"That's… big," Aang whispered. He looked at Katara, wondering what she thought about the creature. "Okay, we found it. Now what?"
"Shouldn't be too hard to capture it," Katara whispered back. She looked up at the frozen ceiling. "Only question is if we can do it without bringing down the roof on us."
"Like you would make a rookie mistake like that," Aang whispered. He saw the creature finish its meal, and like any predator it would surely seek out new prey. "Ready?"
"Ready," Katara whispered. She looked at the other three people, all of them nodding in agreement. "On three. One… two… three!"
They leapt out from cover, and snow beside them exploded.
A second creature burst out of the snow, roused from sleep by the intruders, and slammed its whole mass into one of them. There was a loud scream, quickly silenced, and the man was torn limb from limb. Other screams followed, and the reaction was swift and without mercy. Katara summoned a wave of water from the ice, overwhelming the creature before it could kill again, and slammed it into the far wall before freezing the water back into ice several feet thick. Yet that ice still shattered from the creature's strength, and it charged back at the group again.
The first creature had noticed and rushed over as well, pinning the group in between the two of them. Aang created a gale and made it blow snow into the creature, blinding it as well as pushing it back. Katara followed by making a small river inside the cave, making the water flow into the second creature and carry it away, then slamming it into the first. This time Katara froze the water into ice thicker than before, making sure that it would hold the creatures this time. A few cracks formed anyway, but the ice held, and Katara reinforced it with more freezing water.
"Damn it all," Katara muttered, glaring at the creatures she captured. "This wasn't worth someone dying."
Aang looked at the pieces that used to be a person. "What are we going to do?"
Katara sighed and crossed her arms. "Well, we can bring him back at least. Tell everyone what happened here. Give him a proper burial."
"It's the least we could do," Aang said. He turned his attention to the creatures trapped in the ice, taking a second to waterbend little holes to allow them to breathe. They may have been violent, but he wasn't going to let them suffocate. "What are we doing with them?"
"I'm sure Leia would want her people to study them," Katara said. She used waterbending to make a sled of ice underneath them, just to make it easier to move. "Let's get out of here."
The dead man's remains were gathered up, respectfully of course, and brought outside first. Then the creatures trapped in ice were brought out, carefully to be certain they wouldn't break out, and taken into the cold outside. The lookout was shocked to learn that someone had died, and angered when he saw the creatures responsible. The ice prison was attached to the spare tauntaun with ropes, the dead man's remains were loaded onto it, and another rider would lead that tauntaun along. Once everything was ready they set out, heading back to the rebel base at a reasonable pace.
Along the way Aang spotted something in the distance, a speck of black amidst a blue sky and white landscape. He thought he saw a small burst of flame, reminding him of Sozin's Comet, but it was gone as quickly as it came. Whatever it was impacted the land on the horizon, ejecting a plume of snow from the surface into the air, which quickly settled back down. He couldn't even see a crater from here, too small for the naked eye to pick out. No one else had been looking that way and didn't see it, and when it was over Aang wasn't sure if there had been anything at all.
Soon they arrived at the rebel base, and the hangar doors opened to let them inside. People inside were surprised when Katara hauled in a big block of ice with creatures inside, most having believed that there weren't any indigenous predators like them on this planet. Katara turned them over to the rebels for examination, watching them haul the creatures away to be locked up somewhere more secure. The tauntauns were returned to their pen, the winter gear was put away, and the remains of the dead man were delivered to the next of kin.
Aang and Katara were still in the hangar when they saw Leia arrive, and Katara waved toward her. "Hey, we're back. And we found your critters."
"I see that," Leia said, waving an arm towards the icebound creatures being hauled away. She walked over to Aang and Katara, noticing the somber look. "I take it someone didn't come back."
"Yeah," Katara muttered. "It wasn't worth it to capture those things."
"Still, might as well make the loss mean something," Leia said. "There's bound to be more of those things out there. The ones you caught will help us figure out how to deal with them."
Wanting to talk about anything else, Aang changed the subject. "On the way back I saw something fall from the sky. It struck somewhere on the southern horizon from here. Is that normal here?"
"Could be a small meteor," Leia speculated. "Or it could be something worse. I'll have someone check it out later. Thanks for spotting it."
"You're welcome," Aang said. He turned toward Katara. "I'm going to get some rest. It's been a long day. Katara, do you mind if we meet up somewhere tomorrow morning? There's something I could use your help with."
"Sure, anything," Katara said.
"Great, see you then," Aang said.
The end of the day came and went, though the work of the rebellion did not stop. Although the ships would not arrive or depart during the night, the cold being too much to handle for any vessel, but only the hangar doors would be closed down. Ships still inside continued to be worked on, repairs and maintenance performed to completion, and extra modifications were made with the extra time spent waiting for morning. The night crew took over to do the work, about half the size of the day crew, and got nearly as much work done in the time they had.
At one end of the base there was a section dedicated to research, and there were two new test subjects to experiment on. The creatures captured today had been removed from the ice and placed in steel cages, the bars thick enough to withstand even their considerable strength. Researchers took a liking to the name wampa for the species, having nothing better to call these creatures. Of all the aspects to study, the wampas' fur was especially intriguing, for it was more efficient at retaining heat than even the base's best insulation.
Unbeknownst to anyone else, those weren't the only two wampas around. Drawn by the heat inside of the base, a pack of them were tunneling through the ice that the base was built from. Their tunnel approached from the side opposite from the hangar, near the deepest part of the base, where no one would think of expecting an intrusion. The only warning was a patch of ice becoming transparent, where the ice was thinned by clawed hands. No one saw it in time to sound the alarm, and the wall collapsed into a pile of frozen rubble.
Wampas emerged from the hole, a few at first with more following not far behind. On entry they smelled many appetizing meals, plenty of fresh meat to hunt down. Three of them stalked the halls, tracking the nearest scent, which happened to be a rebel pilot on a midnight stroll. The wampas ambushed him and tore his body apart, and feasted on the bloody chunks of flesh. They fought each other a little for the biggest portion, and the largest of them claimed the pilot's torso. It made plenty of noise, and it carried through the halls of the base.
Another pilot investigated, saw the creatures at the far end of a hallway, and slammed his fist on an alarm mounted on a wall. "We're Under Attack!"
The alarm sounded throughout the base, a loud klaxon that was unmistakable. Everyone in the base awoke from their slumber, even the hardest sleepers were woken by the alarm. People put on their gear, grabbed their weapon of choice, and reported to emergency stations immediately. Although they couldn't know the nature of the alarm just yet, it was clear they were being attacked by something. Response teams were assembled and dispatched, and other personnel secured the vital areas of the base.
But while response teams got ready the wampas continued their hunt, and those that were unfortunate enough to be nearby had to deal with them. Those without weapons bolted their doors shut, and those that had weapons quickly grabbed them. Small blasters were drawn and brought to bear, fired at the wampas wherever they were in sight. Thick hides absorbed the first few shots, though the wampas still bled after getting hit. They were taking damage from the weapons, but all it accomplished was slowing down the wampas.
Awoken by the alarm blasting in his ears, Aang was up and running about. With the wind at his back Aang ran through the hallway, quickly reaching the source of the ruckus. He saw the wampas, recognized the threat they were, and sprang into action. He spun his arms to summon the wind, sending it down the length of the hallway, slamming into the wampas with the force of a hurricane. Lifted off their feet by the wind the wampas were slammed into the far wall, cracking the ice considerably and cracking a few bones.
Aang saw the wampas get back up, their attention fully on him now. "Uh Oh…"
The wampas charged at him, running surprisingly fast for their size. Aang threw more wind down the corridor, slamming it into the charging wampas. But they were ready for it this time, and the wind only slowed them down to a sloth-snail's pace. The wind passed and the wampas charged faster, closing in on Aang in a short moment. Aang switched to waterbending and melted the ceiling, drenched the wampas in the new water, and froze it back into ice. He added more water to make more ice, entombing the wampas in it, leaving only their heads exposed.
But those weren't the only wampas in the base, evidenced by the loud roars elsewhere. Aang followed them to the deep side of the base, quickly reaching the place the wampas had broken into. A group of them were feasting on someone's corpse, and looked at the apparent meal coming their way. These wampas were surprised by airbending, lifted off their feet by the wind, and blown back into the hole they had come in through. Aang then melted the ice and filled the hole with water, refreezing the ice to seal the breach and keep the wampas out.
Only when he had just finished did the first squad of rebels arrive, and Aang turned around to greet them. "Nothing to worry about here, the situation is under control."
Given what the rebels had seen, there was no doubt of that. Still, they stuck around to secure the place, just in case the wampas broke through the ice again. Aang checked with vibration sight, dearly missing Toph as he did so. It was unreliable in the ice, but still saw far enough to tell that the wampas were retreating. He told the rebels such, though only a few believed that he could actually see like that. As far as they could tell there weren't any more wampas coming through, and that the base was secure from internal attacks for the time being.
Meanwhile another group of rebels were dealing with the other wampas Aang trapped in ice, carefully detaching them from the floor to take away. Those were put with the other wampas captured earlier, added to the test subjects for experimentation later. More researchers were assigned to studying them, and several more guards were added in case the wampas broke out of the ice. More people showed up just to see what was going on, and were not disappointed when they heard about the attack and saw the aftermath.
Eventually Leia arrived at the resealed breach, seeing Aang leaning back against a wall. "It seems we have you to thank. This could have been far worse without you here."
"I noticed," Aang said. He looked at the ice he had made, imagining the tunnel that lay beyond. "Now we know why they were skulking around the base. They were trying to get in."
"We would look like a feast to predators," Leia said. She turned towards the rebels nearby, all relieved that the crisis was over. "Close this entire section off. Set up monitoring sensors in adjacent sections. Don't let this happen again."
"Yes ma'am," one man said.
The order was carried out immediately. Workers were brought in to seal off this section of the base, installing metal doors at the ends of compromised hallways. Everything of value was taken out of this section, moved to other parts of the base within a few hours. There were a few complaints from people that didn't want their stuff moved, but were quickly silenced when shown the aftermath of the wampa attack. Once everything was moved and everyone was outside the compromised section, the workers finished sealing it off from the rest of the base.
It wasn't the only precaution taken in light of the attack. When the morning arrived Katara and a few waterbenders got to work, carefully melting and refreezing the ice in parts of the base, making it tougher and more difficult to tunnel through. Critical areas had layers of steel added to the ice, just to be absolutely certain that nothing could claw its way into those areas. Sensors were placed in the outer parts of the base, scanning the ice all around the place, just in case the wampas tried to tunnel in elsewhere.
And just to be absolutely certain, Katara and Aang were sent outside early in the morning, ordered to reinforce the perimeter with waterbending.
"Well this isn't what I wanted to be doing today," Aang grumbled. He melted some snow off the side of the base, moved the water into the proper shape, and froze it into a thick wall of ice. "I guess we'll have to take care of it tomorrow."
Katara added more ice to the wall, and took a moment to adjust her winter clothing for comfort's sake. "I know, it sucks, let's just get it over with."
Fortunately the work was rather easy for them, just tedious from the sheer amount needed to be done. Extra powerful waterbending allowed them to melt vast amounts of snow, put the water into place quickly, and froze into ice with the perfect size and strength. It took all morning for them to reinforce the entire outer perimeter of the base, most of the time spent walking from one part to another. They were done by noon, walked around the base one more time to be sure, and then headed back to the hangar to get back inside.
When they arrived Aang saw a small group in winter clothing, bringing some tauntauns toward the big doors. "Hey guys, what's going on?"
Among the group was Leia, adjusting the hood of her jacket when she heard Aang's voice. She turned and walked over to him and Katara, the others bringing the tauntauns along. "We're going to check out that impact you reported yesterday."
"Oh yeah," Aang said. "I forgot about that. It was a busy night."
"If you're done with the remodeling, could you come with us," Leia asked. "You saw where it hit. That will make it easier to find again."
"Okay, sure," Aang said. "It's not that far from here."
Aang took a moment to grab his own tauntaun, and he joined the group heading outside. He had his tauntaun walk beside Leia's, and he pointed the way to where he saw the impact yesterday. Katara remained in the base, having little reason to go back outside again. Aang remembered where the impact happened, and the group followed him in the right direction. It only took an hour to get there, and Aang recognized the place when they arrived. All the tauntauns stopped there, their riders getting a good look at what they found.
It was a crater in the frozen tundra, roughly ten meters across and three meters deep, exposing the frigid earth underneath the snow. Leia got off her tauntaun and walked to the crater's edge, looking down into the hole for anything interesting. The worrisome part was that she found nothing in the crater, which was atypical for an impact crater. There should have been remnants of the meteor in the crater, small meteorites embedded in the exposed ground and scattered across the snow. Yet there was nothing, as if whatever struck here had gotten up and walked away.
"This could be trouble," Leia muttered. She wanted to imagine a meteor disintegrating completely on impact, but the odds of that were far too low. "We'd better increase surveillance of the area."
Aang had gotten off his tauntaun and walked over to Leia. "Is this bad? Or am I missing something?"
"Possibly," Leia answered. "We won't know for certain until we see it."
If there was something here, it was already long gone. There was nothing that could be done about it now, save returning to base to report their findings. Leia and Aang got back on their tauntauns and marched back to base, leading the others until they reached the hangar doors. When they arrived they got inside and the doors were closed, and everyone put away their winter gear after returning the tauntauns to their pen. From there everyone went their separate ways, and the order for more surveillance was carried out.
Aang found his way back to his room, and he found Katara there waiting for him. "Hey, sorry about that. I wasn't expecting to head out right then and there."
"It's alright," Katara said. She was sitting on the edge of Aang's bed, leaning forward and towards him. "So what was it that you wanted to do today?"
"Well now all I want to do is sleep," Aang admitted. He stretched his sore arms, worn out after a battle at night and all the waterbending today. "It can wait one more day. And I think we could use the rest."
Katara shrugged and stood up, then headed for the door. "If you say so. I'll be back tomorrow then."
"Thanks," Aang said. He stood aside and watched Katara leave. "I should be ready in the morning."