Chapter 31: Freezer Burn

It was a nice day on Hoth, which here meant only slightly below zero temperatures and next to no wind. The relatively good weather made it easier to scout across the tundra, though it still required thick clothing to stay warm. A wookie didn't need as much insulation as most rebels, only needing a slightly thinner parka in addition to his natural fur. Chewbacca left deep footprints in the snow, currently heading up the side of a hill, slowing down as he approached the top. He crouched and took cover at the top, looking over the snow and into the small valley on the other side.

Slowly moving across the tundra was an imperial probe droid, seemingly alone on its journey here, barely leaving a mark on the snow beneath it. Chewbacca saw a head appear from behind another hill on the far side of the valley, recognizing Han even with that fuzzy hood on. He saw the hand signal, wanting a quick distraction, so Chewbacca stuck his head up and roared at the droid. It turned and fired a blaster at him, easily avoided simply by ducking behind the hill, allowing Han to shoot the droid from behind.

One shot was enough, though Han hadn't expected that to be the case. That single shot had blown a small hole in the droid, and then the whole thing just exploded. Shredded remains were scattered across the snow, and not a single component of the droid remained intact. Han climbed down from the hill and inspected the remains, his best guess being that the droid had been programmed to self-destruct at the slightest bit of damage. It was a moot observation anyway, given the implications of the probe droid's presence here.

"You can bet the Empire knows we're here."

Returning to the physical world empty handed, Aang and Katara did not have time to dwell on failure.

An alarm was ringing throughout the base, one that Katara had hoped she would never have to hear. It was a dull and droning klaxon, loud enough to draw attention but not be too distracting. This was the evacuation alarm, and gut instinct was enough to know that it was not a drill. It wasn't the emergency alarm though, which meant there was still time to pack up everything and load it all onto every ship in the hangar. Still, the alarm was confirmation that the Empire was on its way, and soon the base would be nothing but rubble.

Standing up first, Katara had to stretch her cramped arms and legs. "Wonderful… we get back here and we need to leave again."

"And I just unpacked too," Aang complained. He stood up and stretched, then looked around at his few possessions in his room. "Oh well, it won't take long to pack up again."

Katara started walking toward the door. "I have a lot of things to take care of. I'll meet you at the hangar before we leave."

Aang nodded. "Okay. I'll see you there."

He watched her leave the room, and then he turned to his own things. Aang got to work packing them into a bag, needing only a few minutes to get it done. With the bag slung over one shoulder and holding his staff in the other arm, Aang left the room for the last time. He walked through the halls of the base, going around the sealed section, heading down the next best route to the hangar. Along the way he saw people moving back and forth everywhere, hauling important items out of the base, starting with everything that wasn't bolted down.

Halfway through the base Aang came across the central command chamber, filled with rebel officers coordinating the evacuation. Aang peeked inside, saw everyone hard at work, and he walked through the doors for a closer look. He still didn't understand the particulars of the machines in here, just that the stations monitored the base and displayed various kinds of information on several screens. Many of them were showing sensor readouts or status reports, both being interpreted to tell when an attack would come and how ready they would be to defend the base.

In the middle of it all was Leia, and she seemed a little relieved to see Aang walking by. "About time you came out. What were you even doing in there?"

"Doesn't matter, it didn't work anyway," Aang said. He walked over to the chair Leia was sitting in, and he faced the screens in front of her. "So how bad is it out there?"

"Still waiting for their ships to arrive," Leia answered. She put her gaze back on the screens, showing what sensors detected in the Hoth system. "Nothing's out there now but our first transports."

Aang looked at the screens, barely making any sense of what he saw. "How do we know when they get here? Space is pretty big."

"We've got sensors across the system," Leia said. "When they come out of hyperspace, we'll know it."

In the black void of interstellar space, the stars were nothing more than pinpricks of light in the darkness. Even the closest sun was no different from the stars, merely part of a constellation along the galaxy's ecliptic. There were no planets or moons out this far, only the comets that orbited at the farthest edges of a solar system. Aside from those chunks of ice and the weak solar wind this far from the nearest star, there was nothing of note out here. Nobody had any reason to be in a place like this, hours away from the nearest planet at maximum sub-luminal speed.

This was where a fleet of Star Destroyers emerged from hyperspace, coming out one by one, and flew into a wide V formation. In the middle of that formation was a Super Star Destroyer, the Executor coordinating Death Squadron on approach to this system. Their engines ignited for a brief and intense burn, quickly getting the fleet up to maximum sub-luminal speed, and shut off to coast into the system. It would take some time to approach the outermost planet, but with the engines offline the fleet would be nearly impossible to detect from a distance.

One of the admirals had objected to this strategy, but Grand Admiral Thrawn shot him down. "Surprise would be of use, if we could achieve target lock and fire within seconds of exiting hyperspace. We can't afford to be clumsy with this attack Ozzel."

Through the computer monitor in his office Thrawn saw Ozzel nod, though the look in Ozzel's eye told that he wasn't happy about it. "As you wish."

The monitor went blank when the transmission ended, and Thrawn stood up before leaving his office. He walked all the way to the Executor's bridge, needing something to do during the long trip. Upon arrival he walked past the bridge crew, hard at work monitoring the ship's systems, making sure that no unnecessary emissions were being made that could be detected from afar. Thrawn walked until he reached the large windows at the front of the bridge, overlooking most of the ship from atop its command tower, and with a view of space ahead of the Executor.

There he stood with his hands folded behind his back, looking out into space while listening to the activity on the bridge. By now the closest star could be told apart from all the others, close enough to be distinguished as a sun instead of a speck of light. A smaller speck of light was near the sun, barely visible in its radiance, barely identifiable as a planet from here. Slowly but surely the view of the system improved, its sun growing larger, planet becoming more than a dot, and thousands of specks from an asteroid field appeared.

The Hoth system awaited, and the rebel base with it.

Afternoon arrived on Hoth, and the evacuation was proceeding well, all things considered.

Granted, only the first few transports had actually left by this point. Those ships carried backups of all data the base contained, information the rebels could not afford to lose. The rest of the transports were still on the ground, constantly being loaded with more equipment and supplies. There wouldn't be any second trips, so each transport needed to be filled to maximum capacity. Everyone in the base helped in one form or another, from dismantling large equipment to hauling the pieces out to coordinating everything in between.

Aang had just finished making a new tunnel through solid ice, the ninth one made with waterbending today, and gestured for people to pass through. "Okay, this one's good, time for the next one."

People came through hauling dismantled computer servers, the last of the bunch that needed to go. Aang turned towards the large transport ships on this end of the tunnel, parked outside of the base some distance from the main hangar. The large cylindrical ships already had their engines running and were ready for takeoff, just waiting for the order to leave. Only one of them was nearly filled to capacity, needing just a few more things loaded up in the remaining space. Aang watched a few people haul server pieces aboard, and then he turned back toward his own work.

He started work on another tunnel, waterbending the ice away to carve another passage into the base. Granted, doing so weakened the base's structural integrity, but that was hardly a concern now. Each tunnel allowed more things to be moved out, and soon enough this place would be abandoned anyway. It took Aang half an hour to make another tunnel, this one leading into the officer quarters section of the base, the next area that needed to be cleared out. Other people were there and ready to haul out the personal effects of the rebel leadership, impressed by the tunnel appearing from the solid wall.

"There you go," Aang said, refreezing water into ice out of the way. "Path's open, get going."

More people passed by Aang, hauling things through the tunnel, not minding Aang as he stayed inside. He needed a break from all the waterbending, and no one was going to tell him otherwise. Aang walked through the base to the mess hall, nearly completely empty at the moment, only one other person in there. He saw Katara sitting at one of the tables, a plate of food in front of her, taking her own break from waterbending to rest and have a quiet meal. She saw Aang and waved, gestured for him to come over, and he pulled up a chair next to her.

"Hard at work?" Katara asked. She pushed her plate toward Aang. "You look like it."

"Yeah," Aang said. He accepted the offer to share, and he sampled a bit of veggies. "But I think enough has been done. We can't make another tunnel without bringing the roof down on us."

"All the good spots are done already anyway," Katara said. She had taken a bite when she noticed dust falling, and she looked up in time to see the ceiling shake. "What's going on up there?"

Aang heard something impact high above them, saw the ceiling shake again, and felt the floor rumble beneath them. "I hope I'm wrong about this…"

They left the table and hurried into the hallway, and they felt another impact above them. Aang quickly made a hole in the ice ceiling, handed the melted water over to Katara, who used it to make a liquid pillar beneath their feet. Together they ascended through the new hole, quickly moving to the top of the base, refreezing water into the hole to close the path beneath them. Outside they were hit by the cold air, willing to tolerate it for a few short moments. That was all the time they would get, given what they saw out here.

It looked like bright white spheres falling from the heavens, impacting the seemingly barren tundra that was the base's rooftop, exploding on contact and blasting craters into the ice and snow. The explosions also sent tremors through the base, fracturing ice inside and shaking supports, collapsing the weaker areas into piles of rubble. But then the sky shimmered with a strange light, as if a clear veil had been wrapped over the world, and the exploding spheres hit that instead. Now the explosions created ripples in the clear veil, unable to pierce it and inflict further damage.

Aang looked at it for just a little bit longer. "They're here."

It was a rough start to the attack, in Thrawn's opinion.

Someone had given the order to fire before Death Squadron was in position, resulting in the Nemesis launching torpedoes too early. The premature bombardment had inflicted some damage on the planet surface, but not the complete and total devastation the entire fleet could have dealt in one swift blow. That blunder had given the rebels time to raise an energy shield over their base, and early sensor readings indicated that it could withstand bombardment for some time. Depleting the energy shield through sheer brute force would take too long, so an alternative attack method was required.

Thrawn turned toward the closest officer. "Deploy the ground assault."

Half an hour after the initial bombardment, the next phase of the battle began. That time was spent filling the transports further, and planning a strategy for getting past the Star Destroyers. Although the energy shield protected the base, ships could not leave while it was up. It would need to be lowered in brief intervals, long enough for a transport and its escorts to slip through, and then be raised again before a renewed orbital bombardment. Meanwhile, scouts reported the arrival of imperial ground forces, and the rebels prepared for battle on the surface.

It came in the form of AT-AT walkers, a dozen of them already marching on the surface, more surely on their way. They were on a slow and steady march to attack the rebel base, their large blasters primed and ready to fire, only needing target lock. The power generators for the base weren't within range, but they would be prime targets once the AT-ATs got close enough to shoot them. Airspeeders were deployed to intercept the AT-ATs, each with a pilot and a gunner, willing to give their lives to buy time for the evacuation.

In the gunner seat of one airspeeder, Katara was twisting her neck in a fruitless attempt for a better view from her rear-facing position. "Just tell me when to start."

Piloting the airspeeder was Wedge, the only one trusted enough to escort such a valuable asset. "Just a little more… now!"

The squadron of airspeeders flew in, swarming around the AT-ATs, avoiding the blaster fire that would surely tear the airspeeders apart. Katara saw the legs of an AT-AT on her right, and she got to work waterbending. She melted a long but narrow swath of ice in front of the AT-AT, one of the legs coming down right on the water, plunging into the depths to hit bedrock below. The AT-AT tried to lift the leg free, only for the other front leg to slip and plunge into the water as well. For good measure Katara froze the water on the next pass, trapping the AT-AT in its awkward position.

"One down," Wedge reported. He steered the airspeeder toward the next AT-AT. "I hope you can keep this up. There's a lot more to go."

"Just get me to them," Katara said.

By now the AT-ATs were shooting at the airspeeders, most of their shots missing the quickly moving targets, a few finding their mark. One shot was enough to cripple an airspeeder and bring it down, crashing into the tundra mostly intact. Speed and maneuverability were all that kept the airspeeders airborne, and they circled the AT-ATs like a swarm of moth-gnats. Their smaller blasters were ineffective against the AT-ATS, so tow cables were employed in an unconventional manner, wrapped around the legs to snare and trip them.

A second AT-AT was caught in Katara's waterbending, and she was working on a third when a blaster shot clipped Wedge's airspeeder. "Hang on! We're going down!"

"Holding on!" Katara yelled.

The airspeeder hit the tundra behind the AT-ATs, behind the line of fire, and surviving the impact mostly intact. It was never going to fly again, even if they had to the time to salvage the wreck, so Wedge opened the airspeeder's canopy to let them get out. Cold air hit them in the face immediately, and both were thankful that their orange flight suits had some insulation, even if it was only good for an hour at most. They had more pressing concerns anyway, like dealing with the nearest AT-AT slowly marching away from them.

Wedge pulled out a small blaster, even if it wouldn't do much against an AT-AT. "Do your thing. I'll cover you."

Katara nodded, stretched her arms, and started running toward the AT-AT. "Okay, here goes!"

She melted snow and ice beneath her feet to make a river of water, and she rode upon the current faster than she could run. Katara directed the current ahead and around the front of the AT-AT, then around and around over and over, creating a large moat around the machine. The circle of ice and snow that remained was melted from the outside inward, quickly erasing the patch of stable terrain, filling the entire thing with swirling water. The AT-AT sank into the water until it hit bedrock, spun around in the current, and was facing backwards when Katara froze the water into ice.

Katara came to a stop beside the head of the AT-AT, barely sticking out of the ice and unable to move. "That worked better than I expected."

The reports were coming in by the dozen, the same thing noticed by all the officers and crewmen down on the surface, all knowing that it was a major threat that needed to be dealt with. Thrawn only needed one to know what was going on, that the rebels were employing a special asset acquired from elsewhere. If it wasn't dealt with now it would surely bring a halt to the ground assault, even if there were more AT-ATs on the way. The delay would certainly allow more rebels to escape, and that could not be allowed to happen.

Fortunately, recent months had provided a countermeasure. "It's sooner than I had planned. Give the order. Blue squad will engage now."

Another AT-AT had succumbed to Katara's waterbending, intact but stuck in the ice with its blasters pointed away from any targets, and she was already moving on to the next one. But then she saw the back end open up, followed by stormtroopers charging out of the AT-AT. It was rather amusing, that they thought they could fight her here, and Katara barely paid them any mind. But then she saw blue highlights on their armor, replacing about half of the white spaces, and she realized there had to be something special to warrant the different armor.

And then Katara saw them move their arms in a very familiar style. "Oh no…"

These blue stormtroopers swept their hands upward, and a massive wave of water burst up from the ice. The wave hit Katara's current of water and knocked her off it, sending her tumbling across the tundra. She recovered quickly, saw the blue stormtroopers exiting the AT-AT, riding down on slides of ice. They hadn't even reached the bottom before Katara melted those slides and whipped the water away, letting the blue stormtroopers fall the rest of the way. Then she drenched the blue stormtroopers in water and froze it solid, stopping them from moving and stopping them from waterbending.

But then Katara heard more flowing water, turned to see more blue stormtroopers emerging from the rest of the AT-ATs, and she went for the radio attached to her belt. "Hey, whoever's listening, the Empire brought waterbenders! Repeat: the Empire brought waterbenders!"

The voice of Leia came through the radio. "It had to happen eventually. Hold them off as long as possible. You're the only one out there who can."

Another massive wave of water was hurled at Katara, but with just one arm she made it flow in a different direction. "This is going to get harder when they get used to being more powerful."

"Just keep them busy," Leia ordered.

"Yeah," Katara said, and she shut off the radio. "Not like I do this for a living or anything…"

Inside the heads of the AT-ATs, imperial officers and operators were leading the ground assault. Although several of their number had been trapped in ice or tripped by tow cables, enough of them remained to advance toward the rebel base. Their slow and steady advance was bringing the base within firing range, and they would have target lock in just a few moments. The officers could see power generators just barely out of range, their destruction would bring down the energy shield and allow for aerial support.

And yet, right when the power generators were in range, a sudden snowstorm appeared and hid the targets behind the white veil. "What the… there was nothing in the forecast about a blizzard."

Aang was standing atop the rebel base, staff in hand and spinning it over his head. His eyes and tattoos were glowing in the Avatar State, the latter glow hidden by the thick clothes he had put on before coming outside again. With that power and his spinning staff Aang whipped up a massive whirlwind, lifting snow off the ground and blowing it into a massive blizzard. The veil of snow hid the base from view, and bought the rebels some desperately needed time. Aang kept up the air and waterbending until the blizzard was self-sustaining, for the short term at the very least.

The blizzard hampered the evacuation a little, but it was still manageable and worth the extra time. Transports were leaving the base one by one, flying by sensors instead of visual, making it through the blizzard without much trouble. The X-Wings and Y-Wings escorting the transports endured a bit of turbulence, their pilots fearing possibly collision with the transports, until they were out of the whirling snow. Ion cannons supporting the transports and fighters were already targeting on long range sensors, so the obscured visuals didn't matter to them.

For good measure Aang unfolded his glider to fly above the blizzard, dived through the snow in front of the base, landing in the midst of the blizzard out of sight. For good measure he went back into the Avatar State and raised a massive wall of ice, hidden in the blizzard from outside view, one more surprise for the imperials to deal with. Once the wall was finished Aang left the Avatar State and took flight, heading back to the rebel base to escape the storm. He landed just outside the hangar and ran inside, folding up his glider along the way.

"Avatar coming through," Aang said as he ran, the wind at his back to speed his way. He quickly made it to the control room, where Leia was still coordinating the evacuation with the other officers. "We need to leave right now. We've got a few minutes tops before the Empire gets in here."

"I know!" Leia yelled. Still, she didn't leave her station, getting back on the radio instead. "Everyone fall back! Get every ship in the air and follow the last transport out. You too Katara, get out of there."

"Katara's still out there!" Aang blurted out.

"Already on my way!" Katara reported. "Their spreading out… wait… crap… not good… this is definitely not good!"

"What's going on out there?" Leia demanded.

"They went under the ice!" Katara warned. "I can't get to them all in time!"

"Which means we have no time to lose," Aang said.

Leia finally got up and turned toward the door. "Agreed."

The other officers were already heading out the door, running past Aang on their way out. He turned around as Leia ran by, matching her pace and leaving the control room. They ran into the hallway and followed the other officers, but didn't get far before the floor shook beneath their feet. Aang stopped and grabbed Leia's sleeve to hold her back, right before thick shards of ice burst upward ahead of them. That ice melted, flowed into a tall ring of water, and blue stormtroopers rose up on a platform of newly frozen ice.

Leia cursed and drew a blaster, though her shots were blocked by the flowing water. The blue stormtroopers bent the water into several tendrils, all of them reaching toward Aang and Leia. With a wave of his hand Aang seized control of the tendrils and turned them back on the blue stormtroopers, slamming each with water and pinning them to the walls before freezing them there. For good measure Aang added more ice on top of the pinned stormtroopers, making sure they couldn't move and waterbend themselves free.

"Should we take one of them with us?" Aang asked. "I mean, I think we need to know how the Empire coerced them into those uniforms."

"We're not in a position to take prisoners," Leia said. "We'll deal with this issue later."

"Fair enough," Aang admitted.

They resumed their run through the base, needing to catch up with everyone else ahead of them. Along the way more blue stormtroopers emerged from the ice, their waterbending easily countered by Aang's, little more than a speedbump for him and Leia. Still, more and more of them were storming the base, entering every part of the place they could find. Although Aang didn't have trouble getting by, the same could not be said for the other rebels trying to flee. Piece by piece the base fell to the enemy, though most of it had already been evacuated.

Aang stopped at a sealed door, tore a warning sign off it, and resumed the run with Leia. "That ought to divert some of them."

Sure enough, when blue stormtroopers came by a minute later, they barged through the sealed door without hesitation. They rushed through into the abandoned part of the base, unaware of why no one was in there. They soon found out, evidenced by their screams echoing through the halls. Aang imagined wampas fighting the blue stormtroopers, and considered himself fortunate to not be mixed up in that. It kept them busy for a little while, until the blue stormtroopers figured out how to properly deal with the wampas.

In a minute Aang and Leia made it outside, reaching the transport just about to take off. "We made it."

However, when they got inside the transport, Aang didn't see someone in particular. "Where's Katara?"

Leia grabbed a radio and held it between her and Aang. "Katara report your position."

"I'm just outside the hangar!" Katara yelled through the radio. "I got hung up on some waterbending, I'll be there in a minute!"

A large explosion went off elsewhere, and the veil in the sky that was the energy shield shimmered and faded away. Leia saw it happen, realized that the AT-ATs had finally destroyed the generators, and that they were out of time. "The transport's taking off now."

"We can't leave Katara behind!" Aang yelled.

"I know," Leia said. She switched the radio to another frequency. "Han, are you still in the hangar?"

"Really wish I wasn't," Han reported. A loud crash came through the radio. "Get that off the cockpit… Anyway, Leia, still in the hangar, trying to leave, talking isn't helping."

"Just needed to know where the Falcon is," Leia said. She switched back to the first frequency. "Katara, get into the hangar and get on the Falcon. I'm sending Aang over to help clear a path."

"Got it!" Katara said.

Leia looked to Aang. "Go."

Aang nodded. "Thank you."

He left the transport immediately, and the door slammed shut behind him. The transport took off immediately, creating a draft that hit Aang from behind, which he airbent into a wind at his back to speed him along. Aang ran around the perimeter of the base, avoiding the large blaster bolts flying by overhead, making it to the hangar in record time. The large door had been blasted open, the hole large enough for a person to get through, but not for a spaceship. Somehow the roof of the hangar remained mostly intact, the one small part that collapsed having done so on top of the Millennium Falcon.

Han and Chewbacca had been making last minute repairs when the attack began, and were nearly finished by now. Aang stopped in front of the Falcon, turned back toward the hole in the door, and realized it wasn't going to let the Falcon through. He looked up next, remembered that the hangar was carved out of ice, and got to work waterbending a new hole in the ceiling big enough to let the Falcon out. Han appreciated the work, since he was going to need to make a quick exit. Aang was finished in half a minute, and he turned his attention back to the ship.

"Are we ready to go?" Aang asked.

"Just about," Han said. He put a panel back on the hull. "Okay everyone inside!"

"Wait," Aang said. "Where's-"

A sudden torrent of water burst through the hole in the hangar door, crashing into the floor of the hangar, and Katara came to a stop in front of the Falcon. "Sorry I'm late."

"Actually, you're right on time," Aang said.

Aang ran for the Falcon, Katara was right behind him, and they reached the entry ramp just when it started to close. The Falcon lifted off immediately after, knocking Aang and Katara off their feet, slamming into the metal floor. Then the Falcon tipped up to fly through the hole in the ceiling, throwing Aang and Katara toward the rear end of the ship. The Falcon leveled off and gravity returned to normal, allowing Aang and Katara to make their way to the cockpit. When they got there they saw Han and Chewbacca at the controls, and through the windshield they saw the last transport directly ahead.

"Hang on to something," Han advised. "This is going to get rough."

Torpedoes were falling from the sky again, now that the energy shield had been disabled and permitting orbital bombardment. Shields protected the transport from the onslaught, for as long as they could hold up anyway. Smaller ships like the Falcon and assorted fighters had to avoid the torpedoes, for one hit would blow them pieces. Han kept the Falcon in the shadow of the transport, relying on the larger ship's shields to provide some form of shelter. Strong turbulence battered the Falcon, shifting the ship back and forth, rocking everyone inside.

Soon the view changed from blue sky to black space, and the fleet of Star Destroyers came into view. Several had been disabled by the rebel base's ion cannons, their shots having shut down ship systems without destroying them. The other Star Destroyers maneuvered to compensate, shooting at every rebel ship they saw. There was a small gap in the formation, and the transport flew for it with engines at maximum burn, trying to get through before the gap closed. The transport's shields took a heavy beating, nearly failed by the time it got through, and on the far side it made the jump to hyperspace.

"There goes Leia," Aang said.

"Barely," Han noted. He saw the gap between Star Destroyers close on them, and he had the Falcon bank right. "Hold on!"

The Falcon flew over the dorsal hull of a Star Destroyer, barely evading blaster fire from its turrets, swaying left and right to avoid getting in target lock. TIE Fighters were launched and pursued the Falcon, shooting constantly just to get a single hit, and it took every piloting trick Han had to avoid being shot down. When they passed the side of the Star Destroyer he made the Falcon dive, getting beneath the large engines, forcing the enemy ship to switch to ventral turrets. From there Han looked for the emptiest patch of space he could find, and Chewbacca was already plotting the hyperspace jump.

"There!" Han shouted, steering the Falcon toward a group of bright stars. "Punch it!"

Chewbacca pushed the lever forward, the stars turned into streaks, and the Millennium Falcon made the jump to hyperspace.

Thrawn was disappointed, but not all that surprised. After all, the Millennium Falcon had a reputation for narrow escapes.

It wasn't a total loss, all things considered. The primary objective of destroying the rebel base had been achieved, leaving the rebel survivors without a secure headquarters. The secondary objective of exterminating the rebels had admittedly been a failure, given that at least half of them had escaped. The tertiary objective of field testing blue squad had been a success, having been able to counter the rebels' waterbending to some degree and keep the ground assault on schedule. All in all, this was a good day for the Empire.

"Calculate the probable exit points the rebels might use," Thrawn ordered, and the officers and bridge crew immediately got to work. "Pursue when ready. We will not give them a chance to hide."