Conquering the city of Antea, second-largest spaceport and biggest industrial export center on Peralta, was a mighty task. The Rebel had set themselves on it anyway, knowing it would be a complicated battle where many factors worked for and against them.
In their favor: Antea was a hilly city, nestled along a river valley. In that terrain, the Empire's mighty AT-AT walkers would be useless. The cramped urban environment made even AT-STs ineffective. Further, the city was full of vital infrastructure, especially the spaceport on the north side of the Benton river. Destroying it via orbital or artillery bombardment would cripple Peralta's economy and send shockwaves through the Empire's supply lines galaxy-wide. The city had a local orbital defense shield based on the spaceport which could protect it from aerial attacks, though the projector had been installed during the Clone Wars and the efficacy of the decades-old equipment was uncertain.
Working against them: Urban environments were notoriously hard to secure. Enemies could hide in cellars, lurk in abandoned buildings, even be sheltered by civilians who themselves were a complication. As soon as you seized their city, in part or in whole, it became your responsibility to feed and protect them. And the spaceport, valuable as it was, also had heavy defenses.
Juno Eclipse evaluated all these things while she, Consantius, and the other Peraltan Rebels drew up an invasion plan. They developed strategies to take advantage of the pros and work around the cons, but there was one wild card that might go either way. That was the Benton itself.
Once upon a time, before repulsorlifts and airspeeders dominated the skies, people had used rivers to transport goods and cities had sprung up around them. The Benton flowed west to east through the city, bisecting it almost equally. At Antea's heart it was a hundred meters across, and wider along the outskirts. Such a gap could easily be crossed by airspeeders, but only if one had air superiority, and acquiring that was the most challenging part of the Rebels' mission. Regular repulsorlift craft would sink into the deep water if they tried to cross it. Two great suspension bridges crossed the Benton on the east and west ends of the city, and these were destined to become flashpoints if this became a ground battle. Juno had people looking into their demolition, should that become a strategic necessity.
What she and the other Rebel leaders all agreed upon was that the spaceport was the main priority. It not only had to be struck first, it had to be struck before the enemy even realized they were under attack. And because the spaceport was located in the northeast part of the city, that meant taking it was the job of Juno's army.
She had volunteered to lead the infiltration mission over Consantius' objections. It was, she'd insisted, her specialty, and she wanted to oversee the most critical operation in-person.
All of this was true, but this was a far cry from the missions she'd undertaken with Starkiller. Without a Force-wielder slaying his way to the heart of the installation they had to sneak inside using uniforms and identification chips for the Peraltan Planetary Militia, provided by Consantius's allies. She'd briefly wondered if Skywalker was up for this sort of job, but one look in his earnest eyes convinced her he was better off elsewhere.
Besides, she didn't want to deal with him. Planning the conquest of Antea had been a good excuse for not telling him about Shenandor, and Skywalker was surprisingly patient. Instead of pushing her for the rest he'd offered to help any way he could, though he'd asked that she keep his full identity a secret for now. All well and good, she supposed. If Vancon's people saw a lightsaber-wielding Jedi fighting at Antea they'd use it to call down the full might of the Empire. Besides, she got the feeling Skywalker wasn't really comfortable with his weapon or his Jedi powers, which she'd as yet seen no actual evidence of.
Yes, he was the opposite of Starkiller in every way.
Infiltrating the spaceport meant she had to tear her thoughts off both men. The expansive facility was divided in sections; one set of docks berthed civilian transports, while others shipped the planet's industrial product in massive Damorian haulers. Another, smaller part was under direct purview of the Empire, and for the first time in months Juno had to look in the eyes of white-armored stormtroopers when she and her sabotage team presented identicards at the security checkpoint.
Her heart pounded fast as she stared into the trooper's black visor. As he plugged her card into his scanner he asked, "What's your team business here, Captain? You're not on the schedule today."
"Replacement crew for the freighter in berth Aurek-Nine. The original crew got stuck on Gargon."
"Probably had too much spice and lost track of time." He handed her the card and waved the rest of her group forward to be checked.
Juno waited patiently as the trooper scanned Nevetts and the other nine soldiers she'd brought with her, all dressed in PPM uniforms with nothing more than standard service weapons. Unless this plan went greatly awry, they wouldn't need more. Rolling along with the group was R2-D2. Skywalker had promised that he was an especially resource-ful droid and would serve them well. Juno was skeptical of Skywalker but the droid was originally Leia Organa's, and she'd seen first-hand how well the little tin can worked, so she'd accepted his offer to take the astromech along.
The last through the line was Trake, a red-bearded man who'd once served the PPM at this very port. Though he gave no outward sign, Juno suspected he was glad to be checked by Imperials instead of local security.
Once they were through the checkpoint she let Trake take point. He led them through the winding halls of the spaceport until they were in a hallway clear of the facility's mile foot traffic.
"All right," he told them, "There's a secondary control node just down the hall. Once we dispose of the guards we can lock down all the sections with Imperials, raise the shields, and shut down the defense systems."
Everyone nodded; they all knew the plan. Once the Imperials and PPM realized what was happening they'd try to nullify central control and use manual overrides to operate the shields and weapon emplacements. That meant that even before Juno and company succeeded in hijacking the control center, the rest of the Rebel armies would have to begin their approach. The second the spaceport's defenses went down, more Rebels would swoop in and secure them.
That was all happening on the north side of the river. Everyone on the south side was up to Colonel Podessa and Major Calomar, the leaders of the other regional armies. She had no control over their assault and simply had to trust them to do their job, as they trusted her.
It always came down to trust. That had once been easy for her. Now she wanted to take everything into her own hands. When they breached the auxiliary control center she felt the thrill of efficacy. After Trake overrode the door lock, she led the charge into the circular chamber, blaster out and immediately firing. She dropped three crewman herself while the rest of her team charged in behind her. They took the Imperial technicians and officers completely off-guard. Within thirty seconds, the room was theirs.
But that was the easy part. As her soldiers tossed bodies out of chairs Juno snapped, "Is that door sealed?"
R2-D2 whistled approvingly as he jacked into the door control panel.
"Good. Trake, tell me you can get into their computer system."
"I know it like the back of my hand." The bearded man bent over the round central console. "Bypassing initial firewalls… onto the second..."
"Should I send up the flare?" asked Nevetts as he hurried to the comm station.
"Do it," Juno said.
Everyone else was taking position at their assigned computers. Even R2-D2 rolled over to an access panel. Thanks to Trake's first-hand information they'd planned for this and drilled for it. Juno stood at the center of the room beside Trake; as mission leader she was the only one not working a console. Her job was to watch, listen, and command. Each person she'd brought with her had a specific skill needed to shut down the spaceport and call in their allies.
Nevetts took the first step by broadcasting three bursts of all-frequency static though the spaceport's primary comm array. Each burst lasted half a standard second; even three in a row would seem like a common systems glitch. But to the Rebels listening in the hills outside Antea, it was the signal to begin attack.
As that went out she asked Trake, "How are we doing?"
"Working on the last firewall… Got it. We've got full systems access."
"Sound off," Juno ordered.
In sequence all her people reported that they were in the appropriate computer networks. Juno was shocked it had all gone so easily and reminded herself they were dealing with PPM officers here, mostly civilian. This was a far cry from breaking into a TIE fighter factory or star destroyer shipyard.
In any case, this was just the spark. The coming inferno would be an ugly, brutal thing.
The officer manning the spaceports sensor suite reported, "Alerts popping up. They're tracking our speeders coming from all three directions. Port control is sounding the alarm."
"Nevetts, are we jamming their comms?" asked Juno.
The skinny man nodded. "Yes, ma'am. We've got 'em on mute. They're gonna wonder what's up, though."
"Let them. Have we located all Imperial and PPM armed units within the base?"
R2-D2, plugged into the main security station, whistled affirmative.
"Lock them down."
Within seconds, heavy blast doors lowered at key portals, trapping the stormtroopers and PPM soldiers in discrete sections of the spaceport. That, more than anything, was going to alert the port's command station that things were going haywire.
"Cut power to central command now," Juno ordered. "I want a full black-out."
"I'm setting the generator to overload," said Trake as his fingers flashed over his console keypad.
Alarms started sounding over nearby stations but they were all the right ones. The power generator that fed to the main command unit blew out, sending cascade failures that their secondary station was insulated from. At the same time Nevetts's comm blackout held, and Trake blew another power generator to kill the shields.
"Last thing are the defensive turrets," Juno said. "Shut them down."
Her soldiers did exactly as ordered. There was no flashy show of saber-play, no grand explosions, no catching star destroyers with the Force. Just ten men and women (plus one droid) camped at their computers, doing their jobs, and seizing Peralta's biggest spaceport without even touching their blasters. Within five minutes it lay supine before the Rebel army coming down from the northeast hills. Commando teams on speeder bikes and light assault vehicles stormed the shield generator and weapon turrets. In fifteen minutes, the entire complex was theirs.
Juno felt good about that, but she knew there was plenty violence to come.
-{}-
Though it had long ago lost its purpose as a transportation corridor, the Benton river remained the heart of Antea. The long-hulled haulers were gone, but in their place were dozens of waveskimmers and traditional boats. Larger ones were rented out for pleasure-cruisers; others were privately owned by citizens who enjoyed the idyll of more primitive centuries. At all times of day and night there would be craft listing on the water, though their numbers had recently dimmed in anticipation of a coming snowstorm.
It was, nonetheless, easy for Juno Eclipse's Rebels to slip five small- to medium-sized boats into berths on the north side of the Benton, each of them manned by soldiers in mufti and packed with weapons. She had begun seeding units in the city as soon as the invasion order came down. Posing as civilians they scouted North Antea, located redoubts for the local militia, and laid plans for swift action when the battle started.
This wasn't totally new terrain for Luke Skywalker. In the past seven months he'd done a little infiltration work; that trip to the Fondor shipyards came to mind. He was nonetheless uncomfortable with it. Part of it was his companions. The unit with whom he scouted the streets and slept on the boat included a few familiar faces, including the big brusque Berbar, the tattooed sniper Drasca, and the lean scout Ferol. None of them were particularly friendly. Ferol made it especially clear that she'd expected more help from Alliance command months ago. That it hadn't arrived left her bitter and she had nowhere to place her bitterness except Luke. Berbar and Drasca tried to soothe her but that didn't mean they were friendly. During meals on the boat Drasca sometimes prodded gently about his business with the general. Luke warded her off by insisting it was private.
That was what left him most uncomfortable. Eclipse had been clearly eager to send him away. He knew he was drudging unpleasant memories, but he also sensed she held some secret she hadn't told anyone, even Alliance command. He tried to be understanding but he had, after all, come a very long way to learn about Starkiller. He'd nearly gotten killed arriving and might die before he could leave. Yet Eclipse took the first opportunity to brush him off.
He didn't know what to make of this Starkiller either. That man seemed like an eruption of half-tamed Force power. Perhaps he'd been born that way; perhaps he'd been trained as a child and using its strength had come as naturally to him as breathing. That didn't mean he'd had an easy time of it. Eclipse described, best she could, his internal dilemmas about his brutal, deceptive Master.
Luke had only interrupted her story once, after she'd described her rescue at Kamno and Vader's capture, before she started telling about Shenandor. During a short pause he'd asked her: "Was this new Starkiller the same man you know, or a clone?"
Her only answer was uncertainty. "Maybe," she'd said, "it doesn't have to be one or the other."
Which didn't help, and certainly didn't spread illumination as to how Starkiller had defeated Vader twice in combat. That, most of all, Luke yearned to know, because he sensed that someday, somewhere, he'd be forced to confront that man who'd murdered Ben and his father. Eclipse's story left him no more prepared for that destiny than he had been before.
Luke was not happy with anything, but he had to put it all out of his mind when the battle for Antea started. As soon as they received the static burst signal from Eclipse's team, the other Rebel infiltrators sprung into action. Luke and his companions went out into the city, now sporting blasters, light armor, and jackets insulated against the approaching cold. They fanned out to their targets through early-morning streets, no longer bothering to hide themselves. When they reached their targets, they attacked.
Luke followed the rest of his unit in surrounding one of the local law enforcement centers. As soon as they were in the public lobby they burst into motion. Berbar and the other heavy soldiers rushed the security gate, overwhelming the sleepy guards, then pushed into the back rooms of the facility. While Ferol, Drasca, and a few others stood sentinel in the lobby, Luke followed Berbar's people as they stormed through the facility, using stun bolts to drop the police who resisted, all the while shouting at the top of their lungs for surrender. The staff, armed policemen and civilian clerks alike, were rounded up and thrown into the prison block at the back of the building.
It all left Luke feeling slightly sickened. They weren't battling faceless stormtroopers; they weren't even fighting soldiers or militiamen. These were mere local police who'd started the day thinking they'd protect their fellow citizens, only to find their headquarters stormed and themselves herded at gunpoint into their own cells. In the meantime the city's Rebel liberators helped themselves to the police's store of weapons and armor. There were moments where Luke felt like a pillaging invader instead of a hero.
Moral clarity returned with the sound of heavy weapons fire from outside. He followed Ferol and Berbar out of the station into the streets. Smoke was rising from several locations past nearby rooftops. Confused civilians were running for cover. Luke heard the distinctive whine of an airborne speeder. When it grew loud and close he marked it as an Incom T-47.
"Get down!" Ferol shouted just before she grabbed Luke by the back of the head and tossed him to the ground.
Two T-47s cut in from above, half-silhouetted against an overcast sky. They released a spray of chain-linked red laser-blasts that gouged geysers of flame and asphalt from the street. With a shock Luke realized they were shooting at him.
"PPM speeders!" Ferol snapped as they soared overhead. "I thought we locked down the karking spaceport!"
"Think there was an airbase on the south side," shouted Berbar as he scampered for the safety of an alley. "Hold on, I'm callin' for help."
Luke and Ferol ran after him. As they squeezed themselves into the narrow lane Berbar was saying something into his portable comlink. Luke peeked out through the alley mouth as the T-47s dove down on their position again. The DH-17 blaster in his hand felt absolutely pathetic; as for the lightsaber he kept inside his jacket, he didn't dare try to use it. Good against remotes was one thing; good against a pair of airborne speeders with heavy laser cannons was damned well something else.
The next round of laser blasts blew holes in a building five meters away. Smoke filled the air and debris spilled into the street. The airspeeders pulled up and wheeled around yet again.
And then a missile streaked up from nowhere, slammed into the underside of one T-47, and turned it into a fireball. The other speeder tried to evade, opening its wing flaps to slow for a tight turn, but it could not evade a second missile. This speeder took the hit but didn't burst into flames; instead it streaked through the sky, trailing smoke and fire. It fell out of a view and a second later a massive explosion rocked the city. Luke felt sick knowing it must have crashed into a building, probably full of innocent people.
Berbar was overjoyed. He pumped a fist in the air and shouted, "Take that you murglacks!"
"What was that?" Luke asked. "The guns from the space-port?"
"Looked like a PLEX to me," Ferol said. "Shoulder-mounted missile. Think a couple other teams brought 'em along."
"And we're damned lucky they did," said Berbar. "We need to-"
He was interrupted by the screech of his comm. He held it close and spoke into it; the wind and distant blaster-fire kept Luke from hearing. When he pocketed the comm, the big man said, "Calton's team needs help! They're five blocks north of here."
"What about the police station?" Luke asked.
"Drasca has it covered," Ferol said and slung her rifle over her shoulder. "Come on, let's go!"
Luke had seen a lot of action since joining the Rebel Alliance, but most have it had been through the cockpit of his X-wing. Aerial and space duels with TIE fighters were nerve-wracking in the extreme; a split-second's reaction made the difference between life and death not just for you but uncounted others. It was harrowing, but also thrilling. Dogfighting recalled his days as a boy, where he'd spun his model T-23 speeder through the air and imagined what it would like to have a sleek, beautiful spaceship entirely in his hands.
He'd seen a lot less ground combat, and the battle for Antea was the fiercest he'd ever known. It was a totally different animal from starfighter battles. The city's complex tangle of slopes and streets became the topography of survival. Even the smallest slab of cover could save your life. Every window hinted at a sniper's lethal edge. Your fellow soldiers were constantly scampering around you and so was the enemy, and on Peralta that meant locals fighting locals. There were no stormtroopers acting as identifiable foes; it was just men and women in dirty fatigues scampering through alley and streets and white snow flurries. Friend and enemy were still absolute, but much harder to tell on first sight.
Most of all, ground combat was dirty. An X-wing's cockpit was vacuum-sealed against everything, but in Antea's streets there was nothing to block the constant whine of laserfire in all directions, the burst of explosions, the whine of overhead mortars, the reek of smoke, the blood and ash and screams.
Luke missed his X-wing very, very much.
The team he'd come to help was pinned down in the center of a municipal plaza. Blocky government mid-rises claimed all three corners of the triangle; the three street-level passages into the space were clogged by PPM soldiers and local police officers, who'd pulled up barricades for cover and to block any escape. Calton's team of soldiers were stuck hiding under statues and behind pillars; some even sheltered in a massive central fountain, its basin emptied for winter.
It was a bad situation and getting worse. As Luke and the other soldiers scoped the scene from across the street they heard the clank of heavy mechanical legs and the pounding of pavement.
"I thought they couldn't use walkers in this city," Luke said.
"Not big ones." Berbar took out his comlink. "Hey, Ferol, got eyes on 'em?"
Their companion had clambered up a utility stairwell to scout from a fourth-storey rooftop. This time Luke heard her reply over the commlink. "Three AT-PTs, coming from the south."
"Those are relics," Luke said.
"Yeah, and they can still tear up any infantry." Berbar pocketed his comm and checked his vest. "I've got three grenades."
"I have one," Luke supplied.
"I was planning to use 'em to bust open those barricades. Stang..." The big man's brows knit together. Another hail interrupted his thoughts and he brought his comm back out. "What?"
It was Ferol again. "We've got two Freerunners coming from the north."
"Ours?"
"Yeah, ours. They can clear out the plaza but we've gotta knock out those walkers. If you backtack a block you should be able to take 'em from behind."
"Will do. Covering fire would be nice."
"Drasca's the sniper, not me. But I'll do my best."
"Great. We owe you one." Berbar pocketed the comm again and looked at Luke. "How's your throwing arm? Tell me you're a good blitz-ball player."
All Luke could say was, "I'll do my best."
"Hngh. We'll see if that's enough."
Luke didn't need a reminder of his comrades' low opinion of him, especially before a key engagement. Not for the first time he was tempted to blurt out that he was the one who'd killed the Death Star and he deserved some respect. But this wasn't the place, and they'd never believe him anyway.
He followed Berbar down a back alley until they were at the main road leading to the plaza. The clanking of the approaching AT-PTs was getting louder but neither of them dared peek into the street. They ducked behind a dumpster as the three walkers plodded past them. Compared to AT-ST or AT-AT machines the old AT-PT model was small, but these ones still shook the ground.
Berbar had his comm in hand and whispered, "Okay, Ferol, whenever you're ready."
Luke didn't hear the reply over the walkers' retreating noise. He did, however, hear the blare of laserfire from the rooftop and the pang of its impact on the AT-PTs' hull armor.
A bigger walker might have ignored small arms fire, but these ones stopped and pivoted as best their reverse-articulated legs allowed. The one nearest to the building had a hard time training its front-mounted blaster turret high enough, but the other two sprayed laserfire that tore chunks from the edge of the roof.
"Now! Now! Now!" Berbar called. With an impressive arm, he hurled his grenade at the walkers. Luke threw his as well. The bigger man's grenade landed at the feet of the nearest AT-PT and exploded beneath it, ripping right leg from body and sending both smoking pieces to the ground. Luke's, however, fell short, bounced, then rolled toward the walkers, only to be intercepted by a burst of fire from one AT-PT.
Smoke and debris erupted between the men and the walkers. Luke and Berbar were knocked off their feet and the bigger man let out a cry of pain. Luke rolled onto his side, wiped ash from his eyes, and saw Berbar's left calve snapped at sickening angle.
Things went from bad to worse. The other two AT-PTs ignored the men in the street but turned their attention to the rooftop, from which Ferol was still valiantly firing. The AT-PTs gouged more and more chunks of the building; if they hadn't killed Ferol yet they would soon.
As the smoke cleared Luke saw past the AT-PTs and spied the plaza and its surrounding streets. Enemy infantry still had the Rebels trapped. At the end of the long straight street in which he lay, two Freerunner combat landspeeders were approaching. Their topside turret guns would be good at clearing out infantry but they'd have a much tougher time against those walkers. As Luke watched, one of the AT-PTs turned its attention from Ferol entirely and began marching forward to intercept the Rebel speeders.
For a moment as he lay in the rubble Luke felt pathetic and useless. Then his arm brushed the lightsaber inside his jacket and he remembered he was anything but.
He rose to a crouch and removed the lightsaber, eyes on the nearest AT-PT. Under his breath he pleaded, "Ben, if this is stupid, let me know right now."
But Ben, as usual, stayed silent.
So Luke ran. He kept his head bent lower and arced around chunks of debris and broken asphalt, making sure he was out of view from the AT-PT's forward viewport. Laserfire was still splattering down at the roof, distracting the walker. Miraculously, Ferol was still alive. She didn't like him and frankly he didn't like her, but at the moment nothing meant more than saving her life.
The AT-PT's rear sensors must have alerted the pilot to his presence as he drew close, because the walker began to pivot in his direction. Luke was already sprinting as fast as he could, and before its forward lasers could find him he reached the walker's side and, finally, ignited his lightsaber.
His father's lightsaber.
Holding it in two hands, he swung the weapon in perfect form. The blue blade passed into the walker's left leg above the second joint, then through it. The walker staggered but didn't collapse right away. Luke shifted his grip and stabbed upward into the walker's main body, twisting the blade to cut a meter-long molten tear. Sparks flew, the walker unbalanced, and the heavy body tilted away from Luke and crashed into the street.
One down.
Without pausing Luke sprinted for the second walker, which was now facing down a Freerunner and taking a hail of laserfire on its armored hull. The Rebel speeders' gunners must have seen the man with the lightsaber running at the walker from behind because they suddenly ceased their fire. The AT-PT, however, kept shooting, puncturing the Free-runner's hull, breaking equipment and spilling smoke.
Enough. Luke didn't slow even when he reached the AT-PT. Instead he ducked into a half-crouch and ran straight beneath it. He held his lightsaber above his head in a desperate, awkward one-handed grip and the blade cut straight through the walker's belly, splitting it from back to front.
As soon as he ran out from beneath it, the walker collapsed in a fiery wreck.
Luke stood in the center of the street, panting and sweating in the cold air. Rebel soldiers were piling out of the Freerunner, some with weapons low but others with rifles aimed. All of their faces contained shock and confusion, and all their eyes were on him.
"It's all right," Luke called, holding both hands out, light-saber still tucked against his palm. "I'm… I'm on your side."
As he watched, the Rebels' expressions relaxed from shock to adulation.
It seemed he was going to be a hero again.