Chapter 16: Surprise Tactics
The struggle on the ground had been a losing battle for the First Order for more than an hour, and their efforts to prevent Luke and his friends and their new Tusken allies from foiling their plans were still lacking despite their superior numbers. The stormtroopers had managed to kill a number of Tusken Raiders early on and were still firing with grim determination to kill, but with each surprise attack made by the Raiders, several stormtroopers broke ranks and fled toward the safety of the bunker simply to avoid being pounded into nexu kibble by a growling, roaring Tusken Raider.
While the Tusken Raiders held off the First Order's troops on the west side of the valley, a short distance away, another squad of stormtroopers poured out of the bunker to continue the battle. The stormtroopers took positions and primed their blasters to launch a surprise attack of their own when they felt an unfamiliar presence approaching from behind. It was not a sensation of unyielding lust for battle waiting to be satiated, but one that promised peace if the conflict was ended without weapons and a swift end if the First Order acted with further aggression. The stormtroopers turned and were faced with Luke Skywalker himself, who had his lightsaber held in his bionic right hand and his left hand of flesh and blood free.
The stormtroopers of the First Order had never encountered a Jedi before this, but the story of Luke's "defeat" of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine was known to them, and several of them were reluctant to fire on him. However, their commander spurred them to fight with a single shot of blaster fire. In seconds, the stormtroopers were unleashing a hail of killing fire upon the young Jedi Master, but soon discovered that they were outmatched. Luke advanced with the calmness of a Corellian sand panther and deflected each blaster bolt with fluid motion, and any laser bolts he did not deflect, he merely evaded with a step in another direction or a leap. Luke deflected most blaster shots at the offending troopers while cutting other First Order troops down, and the stormtroopers who remained in that party threw down their weapons and surrendered.
Luke then joined Leia as she repelled blaster fire from more stormtroopers, and the two Jedi siblings cut a path through the stormtrooper ranks as they sent the deadly bolts of superheated plasma back at their owners. But even as more stormtroopers fell at their feet, their armor melted through and their bodies marred with molten masses of metal, plastoid, and bone, Luke and Leia felt a tremor in the Force that told them a new threat was about to rear its ugly head at them.
There came a thunderous clank a few hundred yards away, and then a twin pair of blaster bolts seemed to leap out of the cloudless sky of Tatooine and sailed into the ground. Eight Tusken Raiders were knocked to the ground like wroshyr trees that had been torn out of the soil, and the crater left by the blaster bolts became an approximation of a volcano's throat. The clanking grew louder with each passing second until Luke and Leia saw a small party of eight AT-ST walkers on the march. Lumbering over the barren plain like mechanized gamebirds, the deadly machines unleashed a barrage of laser fire that sent the Tusken Raiders running for cover. Though they continued to strike down any agent of the First Order that stood in their way, the Tuskens easily knew that their weapons would do little good against these metal behemoths.
On the roof of the First Order's bunker, Han and Chewbacca were firing the turrets on the roof at stormtroopers and probe droids when the walkers began their attack. Han prepared to fire a shot at the leading walker's pelvic joints, which would likely dismantle the support of the walker's command cabin and thus render it inoperable, when a sound of bubbling metal and hissing steam filled the air. Han suddenly abandoned his cannon and with a single blaster shot, reduced it to a lump of molten durasteel with its gas cartridges likely to detonate if any unlucky stormtrooper tried to use it.
"Chewie, man your cannon! We're gonna have company soon!" Han shouted urgently. Chewbacca responded with a nod and a bark and resumed unleashing torrents of blaster fire at the First Order's stormtroopers, some of whom were attempting to reach the bunker to retake control. Han turned to the roof access doors he had crisped earlier and was temporarily blinded when a burst of red sparks and fragments of scorched durasteel obscured his vision. Stormtroopers emerged on the roof from the access hatch on Han's left, clambering onto the roof of the bunker three at a time. The commanding stormtrooper said, "Here they are! Set for deadly forc-"
He never finished the sentence, for Han fired and his blaster spat twice, putting two searing punctures in the stormtrooper's chest.
The stormtroopers dove for cover as Han unleashed another hail of laser fire, and as the armored attackers sought to take positions and fire back, Han fired first on the troopers who would likely try to kill Chewbacca. The first trooper that aimed his blaster at the Wookiee was hit squarely between the eyes and keeled over, his groan of pain barely audible. The second stormtrooper managed to fire two blaster shots before Han blasted him directly under the ribs, and he collapsed with a moan of pain. The next time, two stormtroopers both tried to get at Chewbacca, and Han managed to kick the first one over the roof railing, but the other trooper sent him diving behind a large slab of durasteel as he opened fire. The distraction cost him dearly, for Chewbacca had grown weary of firing his turret against the approaching First Order walkers with little effect, and he seized the stormtrooper who was occupied with firing at Han.
The hapless trooper shrieked in fear as the roaring Chewbacca lifted him off his feet and placing one plate-sized paw on his head, the Wookiee sharply twisted the man's neck. There came a loud snapping and popping of bone, like plastic being punctured with a knife, and the stormtrooper simply gasped, twitched, and expired. With a disgusted snarl at the memory of Imperials enslaving his fellow Wookiees all those years ago, Chewbacca threw the doll-form of the stormtrooper over the ledge of the roof and straight to the desert floor below. Stormtroopers engaging in ground combat had barely enough time to avoid the grisly projectile.
On the roof, Han looked around in a brief moment of desperation, for he was beginning to wonder if the First Order's troops had sighted C-3PO and R2-D2 and blown them into scrap metal or had them captured to be reprogrammed once Tatooine was entirely under the First Order's control. However, to his relief, Han saw a glint of gold approaching the bunker very slowly as if the silhouette producing it was limping.
"We're coming!" hollered C-3PO, though he instantly regretted saying so, knowing he could well have alerted the First Order's commanders who were likely in the bunker to his presence and Artoo's.
R2-D2 wasted no time looking for a computer terminal near the main entrance. He activated his servojets and rocketed to the roof like a missile. He wheeled over to the first terminal he saw, plugged himself in, and began accessing the bunker's network until he triggered the base's lockdown mechanism. In an instant, the roof hatch that remained operable sealed shut, preventing more stormtroopers from getting onto the roof except by blowing the hatches apart. For the hatch that was blown apart, all doors leading to it within the bunker were sealed, and any stormtrooper who attempted to fire through each of those blast doors would likely be driven mad with each fruitless attempt. In a few minutes, R2-D2 managed to seal the bunker doors from the exterior into the main control room, preventing the First Order from sending reinforcements onto the battlefield, which was now littered with the prone bodies of stormtroopers and First Order officers and only handfuls of fallen Tusken Raiders; the ones who had only received glancing wounds from their attacker's blasters fought through the pain to remain on foot and pressed the attack.
Meanwhile, Luke and Leia were fighting through the remaining lines of stormtroopers as the walkers were drawing near, each shot from their blaster cannons packing enough energy to impersonate a miniature solar anomaly. A few Tusken Raiders were now attempting to ram the spear-points of their gaffi staves through the legs of the oncoming AT-ST or bludgeon the legs to distort the metal. The Tuskens' weapons were crafted from freighter plating scavenged from wrecks unlucky enough to fall into their hands, but for the first time, their weapons, feared by all on Tatooine, left only grazing dents in the legs of the first three walkers, which blasted fleeing Tuskens into carbonized heaps or crushed them into a stomach-churning paste under their tridactyl-like feet.
Amid the distorted roars of the Tusken Raiders and the clanking of the First Order's walkers, Luke began to surmise that the tactics of the Raiders against those horrible war machines was not a fool's tactic. He said to Leia, "Perhaps the Tuskens' efforts aren't for nothing. They clearly have the right idea, but not the weapons to do it."
"But the two of us do?" replied his sister.
Luke's only response was a quick nod, and then he and Leia ran at the oncoming walkers, leaping over the astonished stormtroopers and repelling blaster bolts as they worked their way toward the lumbering death machines. Luke and Leia reached the first walker and plunged their lightsabers through the durasteel and held firm even as it continued its march toward the Tusken Raiders. After what seemed like hours (though it was only seconds), the red-hot metal gave under the scorching touch of the energy blades. Luke's emerald blade finally pierced through the durasteel right leg of the AT-ST, which made the housing around it drip with the weak viscosity of wet clay, and then he began to work through the enormous "ankle" of the walker bit by bit, and Leia did the same. Finally, as the walker took another step, Luke and Leia jumped clear and watched as its metallic legs buckled, and it trembled as the molten incision on the left leg gave way. The walker collapsed and hit the desert floor with an almighty crunch, and its command cabin was flattened into a quasi-cubical lump of metal, its fore and side cannons detached and systems inoperative.
Han and Chewbacca had seen Luke and Leia's efforts, but to Han, it wasn't enough. There had to be a quicker way to end this struggle and get the First Order off Tatooine. Then he remembered one tactic Chewbacca had pulled during the Battle of Endor that turned the tide with astonishing results, and he said to his co-pilot, "Chewie, I think it's time we taught the First Order what we taught the Empire five years back."
Han and Chewbacca each took a stormtrooper's belt and then crept from the bunker roof as the walkers continued their lumbering charge toward the center of the battlefield where Luke and Leia were busy with the other Tusken Raiders while using the walker they had downed as a makeshift bunker to catch their breath while occasionally catching stormtroopers by surprise as they maneuvered around the wreckage. Unseen by friends and foes alike, Han and Chewbacca crept up on a pair of stragglers at the back. They found a steel tow cable in their individual belts and managed to toss their hooks around the two walkers' leg rotors and began scaling them from behind. It was a tooth-jarring climb for both Han and Chewbacca as the walkers' legs continually moved from under them, making it all but impossible to get a solid footing, but the two managed to get onto the pelvic beam and then reach the tops of the two walkers' command cabins.
Inside the first walker, the pilot was steering toward the thick of the fight while his gunner kept his fingers on the cannon controls when there came the dull thud of something decently heavy landing on the command cabin. The pilot pulled the walker to a standstill and told the gunner, "Get up there, quickly. Get rid of whatever's perched on us."
The gunner unhinged the roof hatch and began to climb up when he was unexpectedly seized in a pair of incredibly hairy arms. Before the First Order trooper could react, Chewbacca sent him toppling to the ground with a scream. Seconds later, Chewbacca dropped into the cabin and seized the walker's pilot in a chokehold, dragging him from his seat. The pilot's eyes bugged behind his anti-glare goggles and his face turned a disconcerting shade of blue as he fought to reach his blaster pistol concealed at his hip as the roaring Wookiee dragged him into the incredibly cramped space behind the walker's seats. Finally, Chewbacca lifted the half-strangled trooper out of the command cabin's hatch and sealed it, and then he started the walker again, giving a barking chuckle as a bone-crunching splat was heard next.
For Han, it was different. Though he also scaled the walker to the command cabin, he reached for a hand iron and found one directly above the front of the cabin, then aimed for the pilot's viewport. The pilot was attempting to get another few Tusken Raiders into the line of fire when a burst of red coupled with an intense flash of extraordinary heat obscured his vision, and the pilot slumped facedown on the walker's dashboard. The gunner had seen the thin streak of energy as well, but thought it of no consequence until the walker lurched to a stop. The First Order trooper opened the hatch and climbed out to deal with the intrusion when Han blasted him in the pelvis and sent him hurtling to the ground. Han then climbed into the command cabin and heaved the pilot's body out and down to join his compatriot, and then he sealed the hatch and joined Chewbacca, whose walker was already on the move.
On the ground, Luke and Leia were keeping the stormtroopers at bay while the Tusken Raiders sought another vantage point when one of the First Order walkers came lumbering in their direction with two others in tow. The first walker continually fired at the fleeing Tuskens when suddenly the two walkers behind it opened fire on the first one simultaneously, blowing the walker apart. The explosion was deafening, but the sight made the Tusken Raiders start cheering in their grunting, growling language.
Han and Chewbacca maneuvered their walkers away from their friends below and began returning fire on the First Order's stormtroopers, who nearly fell over themselves attempting to dodge the fiery hail of plasma bolts. Two-meter-wide craters were blown into the dusty soil with each blast that missed, and any stormtrooper caught in the debris field was bombarded with heat that rapidly overwhelmed his armor's resistance capacity. Suddenly, Luke and Leia sensed through the Force that more attackers were moving out and there came the familiar hum of First Order speeder bikes whose riders were stormtroopers emerging from the bunker as the controllers inside had managed to unlock the doors after fighting with R2-D2's infiltration of the First Order's system for another hour.
The First Order stormtroopers were rearing toward the battlefield with the commanding officer sending his troops on ahead, but the charge was instantly cut short when the first four troopers were inexplicably whiplashed from their speeder bikes by some unseen force, though their armor kept them in one piece. It was only when the stormtrooper commander was mere feet away that he saw a slight metallic glint and realized that the Tusken Raiders had set up trick-wires around the valley area, likely positioning them on boulders at head-height. The stormtrooper attempted to leapfrog over the trick-wire, only for his speeder's steering vanes to catch on the nearly invisible strand of metal like a fish seized on a hook, and then the trooper was thrown from his speeder while the bike catapulted off the trick-wire and hit the ridge, where it shattered in a burst of flames and scorched durasteel.
Further down the battlefield, one of the remaining AT-ST walkers continued its lumbering charge after another band of Tusken Raiders when its right foot stepped on something that caught its left foot. The object turned out to be another trick-wire, which was now dragging the walker back and sending it off-balance. The pilot braked hard to redistribute the weight, but he was powerless to prevent the imbalance, and the walker crashed to the ground in a heap of misshapen durasteel and disjointed servomotors.
In the midst of the chaos, several other Tusken Raiders had gone up the lowest incline leading out of the valley and pried many large boulders loose before positioning them near the ridge as one of the remaining walkers commanded by the First Order's agents came lumbering toward the lines where their fellow tribesmen and newest allies now fought man-to-man with the white-armored invaders. As the last boulder was rolled into position, the leader of this Tusken party gave a grating bark, and then four of his compatriots kicked into the muscles of their banthas, urging them forward. Banthas were not used for pulling or pushing burdens that could easily counter their weight and they were considered ludicrously slow for long journeys by the settlers of Tatooine, but the Tuskens urged their domesticated beasts to press their shaggy bulk into the boulders until they had no strength at all.
There came a cracking, thudding crunch, and in only ten seconds, the boulders cascaded down the slope toward the remaining AT-ST. The first few boulders only caused the walker to tremble and tilt, but the ones that came after were larger and buffeted the nightmarish contraption until the pilot could scarcely keep the machine on its feet. The walker wobbled like it had tripped until it keeled sharply to the right and crashed onto the boulders, whereon the cabin was neatly detached from the legs. But while Luke, Leia, and their friends had triumphed in the first round of conflict, the First Order still had more dangerous tricks to unleash.
A/N: Here's Chapter 16 of the Episode VII rewrite, folks, and I hope it brings back some good memories what with the Easter eggs I hid here. Chapter 17 is on its way, so don't you worry. I will proceed with the rewrite of the Sequel Trilogy as planned. Enjoy my fanfictions, be safe, and have a happy Halloween!