Luke looked up as Han came into the room where he was going through saber forms under Yoda's watchful eye.
"Hiding from Leia again?" Luke asked with a faint smile, seeing the disgruntled look on the smuggler's face.
Yoda tapped his stick firmly on the deck, and Luke took the hint, resuming the forms as he waited for Han to answer.
"No, came to let you know I'll be gone for a while, her highness-ness wants me to transport some medical supplies to Hoth, they didn't arrive in time to go with the convoy," Han sighed.
Yoda's ears pricked up slightly, a nudge from the Force prompting him to turn to Han.
"With you Skywalker and I will go," he said.
"Why?" Han and Luke asked as one.
"Danger there is on Hoth, needed we will be."
"Danger?"
"Yes, much danger."
"The kind of danger we should be warning someone about?" Luke asked.
Yoda hesitated, he couldn't tell exactly what was going to happen on that ball of ice, but he knew it had to be big.
"Warn Mon Mothma we should," he finally conceded.
"Well, you'd better do it quick if you want to come with me, I'm scheduled to leave in less than an hour, before the fleet jumps again."
"Wait with Captain Solo you will, young Skywalker, join you I will soon."
"You don't really believe there is going to be danger on Hoth do you?" Han asked as they moved through the corridors, R2-D2 trundling along behind Luke. Han rolled his eyes at the distinctive sound of Threepio joining their merry band.
"Yes, if Yoda says so, I do."
"You put too much faith in that mystical mumbo jumbo Luke," Han sighed.
"Maybe, maybe not, maybe you should try a little faith yourself Han," Luke said quietly.
"Don't hold your breath kid," Han snorted, he wanted to point out that the mumbo jumbo hadn't done old Kenobi any good on the Death Star, that it hadn't helped him against Vader, but he knew the old man's death was still a sore point for Luke.
/x/
Anakin stood at the front of the bridge, watching hyperspace streak by as they pushed everything to get them to Hoth in time to help the Dominator. He could feel the vagueness in his bond that indicated that Obi-Wan was dropped deep into the Force, trying to follow all of the threads of possibility, to find the path that would offer the least bloodshed.
/Five minutes to reversion,/ he sent into the bond. There was a pause and then he felt his Master's awareness start to filter back in.
The older man joined him just before they dropped out of hyperspace, and they stood shoulder to shoulder as the stars stopped streaking by, and the frigid white ball of Hoth appeared before them.
There were a few moments of quiet, and the alarms started sounding all over the command deck.
"We're reading turbo laser fire on the far side of the planet, there are indications that Shining Sword has also launched ground attack," one of the officers reported.
"Anakin, aid the Dominator, I'm taking a ground force," Obi-Wan said softly.
"Master…" Anakin started in a tone of protest, vividly recalling his vision.
"We don't have a choice Anakin, Luke and Yoda are down there. Take the Shining Sword or destroy her, I suspect most of her clone troops are on the ground or in the TIEs right now anyway."
"Be careful," he whispered.
"I do try Anakin," he pointed out with a wry smile, keeping his voice too low for the crew to hear.
"I know you do, but you're not always terribly good at it," he said with a wry, sad smile.
"Don't get killed Master, please."
Obi-Wan left the command deck, and Anakin started issuing orders, getting the ground forces and fighters assembled in the launch bays, and getting the Vengeance into position to aid their sister ship against the Shining Sword.
Obi-Wan swept into the docking bay, Clipper and his three fellow guards at his back, all of them wearing cold weather trooper armour, like all the other rapidly assembling troops, although Obi-Wan was wearing a protective face mask to protect his lungs from the frigid air, not a helmet, and all of them were marked with a red band on their arms, so that they would know who they were fighting once they got into the fray.
He noticed that their rebel 'guests' were standing by their ships, still under guard, watching everything that was going on warily.
"Prepare to launch if you're launching, we're moving out, the ground assault on Hoth has already started," he said bluntly, seeing them scramble to do just that as he strode up the ramp of the troop transport he would be going down on.
"Command deck, we are ready to launch," he said into the comm. panel.
"Clear to launch, TIE fighters will cover your descent," Anakin's voice came back, Obi-Wan nodded once at the pilot, and they lifted from the deck.
/x/
Yoda looked up sharply toward the icy ceiling in the command room where the rebel commander was trying to direct the defence of the base, sensing Obi-Wan entering the atmosphere.
"Sir, more Imp ships entering the atmosphere," one of the techs said, faintly panicked.
"Assistance, I believe has arrived. From the Vengeance they will be," Yoda said to the commander, who gave him a disbelieving look.
"Sir, we've just had communication from the Vengeance, they state that they are not here to harm us, and request that we pull our people back to defend the base, to keep them out of the cross-fire. Also communication from the Leviathan, they were with the lost convoy, they have all the correct idents, and that is definitely Captain Helmeral, he says they were aided by the Vengeance," the young man on the communication board spoke up.
The commander shook his head and cursed softly under his breath.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, pull our people back, tell them not to engage unless they need to defend the base," he ordered.
The young man relayed the orders, ignoring the squawks of protest, simply continuing to issue the order until everyone who could pull back had done so.
"We've got all we can, there are still some pinned down," the young man said, watching on the screen as the new transports landed, the troops immediately disembarking and moving to engage the soldiers who had been about to surge forward into the space left by the rebel retreat, firing on the white armoured figures and their traitorous commanders.
"They've figured out how we've taken all the other ships, there are no clone troopers here, only mercenaries. Kill them all," Obi-Wan ordered into the channel that connected all his troops after sweeping the opposition with the Force the moment his feet hit the snow.
He saw one of the pinned down positions about to be overrun, and ignited his lightsaber, jumping into the fray and deflecting back a volley of blaster fire.
"Go, now," he ordered the startled rebels, his blade slashing another volley of blasts back at the men who had fired them, cutting them down with pinpoint accuracy.
There was a moment of hesitation, and the men finally obeyed, backing toward the base, firing back at anyone who fired at them.
Obi-Wan kept a fraction of his attention on his own troops, noting that they were moving to wrest control of the turbo laser turret from the enemy, which would be one less thing for Vengeance and Dominator to worry about, the rest of it, he turned on the ATATs that were pounding at the base.
They had made some effort to defend the weak points, knowing they would be facing an opponent who knew all those weak points, and they were currently stationary to try to avoid anyone tripping them, but they hadn't reckoned on him. He darted through the melee, his red blade in motion constantly, deflecting fire and cutting down mercenaries, until he stood under the rearmost ATAT. Gathering the Force, he leapt, easily landing on the top of the walker and slicing through the bolts on the hatch, dropping inside.
He recognized Captain Torell immediately, snarling as the man instantly raised his hands.
"I surrender," he whimpered, obviously realizing his time was up.
"Far, far, too late, Torell," he hissed, running him through.
The young man on the gun controls went for his weapon, and quickly met the same fate as his captain. Obi-Wan shoved his body away from the controls and with a wicked smile, he targeted the two ATATs in front of him, taking them out from behind, before setting the guns to overload, and jumping clear as the walker exploded behind him.
/x/
Luke and Han were covering one of the blast doors, laying down covering fire as the last stragglers came in, their retreats covered by red banded Imp troops.
"This is insane," Han growled as the three ATATs blew up.
"I wonder if Master Yoda knows who that is," Luke said quietly, watching the whirling red blade cutting through the enemy.
"What does it matter?" Han asked dismissively.
"I don't know, just a feeling that it does matter, that it matters a lot," Luke said softly.
"More mumbo jumbo?" Han snorted impatiently.
Luke shot him a dirty look, looking back outside in time to see a wampa rear up behind the figure with the red lightsaber, felling him with a vicious swipe of a massive paw.
"No," Luke yelled, taking off at a run before Han could stop him.
"Damn it Luke," Han yelled, glaring at some of the newly returned men who were still in the corridor.
"Cover this entrance, Chewie, with me," he snapped, the two of them taking off after Luke.
Fortunately the battle had moved away from this area after the destruction of the ATATs, and a shot from Chewie's bowcaster took down the wampa before it could turn its attentions to Luke.
"Where did he go?" Han demanded.
Chewie roared at the scent of blood, and gestured with one shaggy paw in the direction of scuffed snow indicating a crevasse that had been hidden.
Looking down, they could see the still figure lying alone in red stained snow.
"He's alive," Luke said with certainty.
Han eyed the crevasse, it wasn't overly deep, but he didn't think he or Luke would get down there without help, and he wasn't sure it was completely stable.
"What do you think Chewie?"
The Wookie eyed the icy rock walls critically, his fur and claws would help with the grip, and he could see enough hand and foot holds. It wasn't a tree, but it was climbable. Without a word, he handed his bowcaster to Han and started to carefully climb down.
/x/
Anakin felt the air leave his lungs in a rush as he sensed a bright flare of pain, and then darkness from Obi-Wan. Fighting to stop the darkness pulling him under too, he grasped the bridge railing hard and forced himself to breathe.
"Get onto the ground troops, the Emperor is injured, I want him located, now," he snarled.
Closing his eyes briefly, he was hit once again by the vision of Obi-Wan lying in red hued snow.
He turned his head sharply at a shimmer of blue to his right and saw Qui-Gon appearing there.
"He fell afoul of a wampa, he's badly hurt, but he is not alone, your son and his companions are getting him to help."
Anakin scowled, that could be bad, as far as these people were concerned, Obi-Wan was dead.
"They have to know you are both alive sooner or later Anakin," Qui-Gon counselled quietly, fading out again.
Cursing mentally, Anakin forced his attention onto the immediate situation, the Dominator was badly damaged, and venting atmosphere from several sections, but the Shining Sword was also badly damaged and was limpingly using the Dominator as a shield, preventing the Vengeance from taking the kill shot.
"Is the Dominator manoeuvrable?" he demanded of the communications officer.
"Barely, not enough to get their remaining weaponry to bear on the Shining Sword," he reported back after a moment.
Anakin considered, scenarios running at high speed through his mind, if Dominator couldn't move fast enough to get her guns to bear, she certainly couldn't move fast enough to ram the other ship, he could destroy her himself, but Shining Sword wasn't close enough to get caught in the blast, and it would leave the Vengeance vulnerable for a few moments while they waited for their scanners to clear.
"Commander Wylie indicates they have the turbo laser installations under their control," one of the captains reported.
"Good," Anakin said with a wolfish smile, turning away from the railing.
"Give the gun emplacements the precise location of the Shining Sword, tell them to concentrate fire on it. Have the Dominator move away at her best available speed."
The orders were relayed, and the communications officer swallowed hard before looking up at Anakin.
"My Lord, the ground troops report no sightings of the Emperor after he blew up three ATATs," he informed him nervously.
Anakin grimaced, but he knew that Qui-Gon wouldn't deliberately endanger his own son, if he said Obi-Wan would get help, he would have to believe him.
"That situation is….under control…for the moment," was all he said to that.
Turbo laser fire streaked up from the planet then, striking the Shining Sword dead center and she disappeared in a chain reaction of implosions, all flames instantly snuffed out in the vacuum of space.
"Deploy repair crews, find out if the Dominator needs any help with repairs, make sure we mop up any of the Shining Sword's TIE fighters that are still out there," he ordered, his eyes drifting to the ball of ice visible through the main port. He wanted to get down there, to get to his master, but he knew that he would have to wait. He hated waiting.
/x/
Luke looked over as Yoda stumped into the small medical bay while Chewie lay the injured man on the treatment table, stepping back to allow the medical droid access.
"Do you know who he is, master Yoda?" Luke asked.
"Know him I do, know him you do," Yoda said with a sigh as the droid removed the armour before moving on to the face mask.
"Ben?" Luke whispered in shock as the face was revealed. He looked younger, his face nowhere near as aged, his hair no longer completely white, but there was no denying that it was him.
"You knew, you knew he was alive," he said accusingly, betrayal in his blue eyes.
"Yes, knew I did, asked me to tell you not, he did. Things there are you need to know, things to understand," he said firmly.
"What things?" he demanded.
"Not ready yet are you, wait for him to wake you must."
"Wait, right," he sneered, storming from the room, he hated waiting.