Hello reader. Hope you are having a wonderful day. This is my first ever story submitted on this site so please forgive the monologue. Recently I decided to get back into writing, which I used to love in secondary school but kind of dropped once I turned 16. Obviously I immediately came up with a 5-book, multi-layered epic that I wanted to write but I decided to get my feet wet first by writing a short story about one of my favourite scenes in all of film: The Battle of Hoth. I've never been able to find a decent fanfiction about this from the perspective of a normal rebel soldier so I thought I'd try my hand at it. Any feedback: Negative, positive or anywhere in between would be most welcome. I will try to get this finished as soon as possible, preferably in 3 chapters. Thank you for reading :)

The invasion alarm harangued Corr awake. His reflexes fired immediately. He threw off his covers and leaped out of his cot. His skin turned to gooseflesh once the freezing air enveloped him. He quickly pulled on his thermal coverings and snow boots. The boots were still damp from last night's patrol and he felt his socks begin to mop up moisture. Around him, the other soldiers in the barracks were hurriedly following suit and shaking awake those who hadn't yet been roused. A tense silence gripped the room with no soldier uttering a word to each other. The alarm continued to wail and boots crunched on the hard snow. Once he was dressed, Corr left the barracks. The alarm was interrupted by a tinny voice from the speakers attached to the ceiling.
"All infantry report to the main hangar immediately. All infantry to the main hangar".
The voice cut off and the alarm duly resumed. Corr increased his pace to a steady run down the frozen tunnel. He passed ground staff, pilots, officers, and other infantry, all with the same invisible blinkers limiting their attention to five feet in front of them. He entered the armoury and found it packed. The ground had already been chewed into a greyed slush. Corr maneuvered through the clamour and reached the blaster rack. He pulled out a rifle, inspected it briefly, and slung it over his shoulder before moving on to the equipment dump across the room. A pair of familiar greenish eyes met his own. Corr waved out a hand.
"Dar?", he said. "What the hell is this about?", his voice was half-drowned by the still wailing alarm. Dar brushed powdery snow from his shoulder.
"A fleet of Star Destroyers just came out of hyperspace above the system. Full blockade", he said. Corr's stomach flipped. The probe had compromised them. The Empire was here. The word's presence in his mind sparked a memory. Faded images of a black cell with cold steel walls. Weeks of tormenting silence. Boots upon metal stepping down the hall and getting closer. Now two cells away, maybe one. Closer. Just outside the door now. A miserable pause. The door hisses open. A deeper blackness fills the open doorway, spilling into the room and over the floor and up the walls. Corr took a deep breath and looked back at Dar.
"Aren't we evacuating then?", said Corr, a little quicker than he would have liked.
"Yeah. But I think we're going to be buying time first", Dar said with a touch of dryness to his tone. Corr tried to swallow down a pang of nausea. Dar clapped him on the shoulder with a gloved hand.
"I'll see you in the hangar," he said.
Corr turned his attention back to the equipment dump. The officers overseeing it were rushed off their feet handing out equipment to a swarming crowd of rebels. Corr squirmed to the front of the mob and caught the eyes of one of the officers. He held up his token showing his position and rank. Moments later a padded helmet and medical satchel were tossed to him.

The hangar was crammed shoulder to shoulder. Pilots and other personnel were still moving frantically around the waiting infantry. Corr was squeezed almost in the exact centre of the crowd with his arms awkwardly held down at his sides. The rifle strap dug into his collarbone. Sweat slicked his forehead and stuck strands of hair to his face. At the head of the crowd, Princess Leia Organa stood atop a munitions crate to address them. Her hands were clasped tightly behind her back and she stooped forward slightly which lent a steady authority to her demeanour, despite being short in stature. Her voice was tempered steel.
"Full evacuation is underway. The Empire has a complete blockade in place around the planet and a ground assault is imminent. You must defend the shield generator to buy time for the transports to be loaded and escape the system. Air support will accompany you. Once the evacuation has reached a near-complete stage, a coded signal will be sent out to the frontlines for a full retreat. When you receive this signal, proceed directly to the nearest evacuation point and board your transports. Leave all equipment that cannot be carried. Understood?"
An exclamation rang out in response. Leia gestured out with her arms to the soldiers.
"Good luck."
An officer who had been flanking Leia immediately followed on.
"Alright, everyone in your squads and out to the front. Let's go!". The platoon gave another cheer, this one louder. Once the loosening crowd had freed him, Corr broke into a run toward his assembly point. He spotted Dar almost immediately by the blonde hair spilling out from his helmet. He was knelt down inspecting his turret remote. Corr stepped in front of him and Dar looked up from his tinkering.
"You were right," said Corr. Dar cracked a grin.
"We'll be fine. Look around, we'll be called back before they get anywhere near us," said Dar. His confidence was convincing, but Corr knew he was joking. Another voice, clear and tightly wound, piped up from behind them.
"Are you both ready?", said Jan. He was standing tall with a taut posture, his combat uniform immaculate and rifle carefully polished. Dar ignored him.
"Where's Leah?", he said, glancing around the hangar.
"Didn't see her in the crowd, she must already be out at the front", said Corr. As soon as he finished his sentence, their squad leader barked out a command.
"Everyone move out! Station 3TA! Go!", the voice shot through Corr. The squad broke into a sprint towards the huge opening in the hangar leading to the surface of Hoth.

The defences being set up were rudimentary at best. A simple trench system had been dug: a frontline, a second, and a reserve. Gun placements and turrets were scattered with no real consistent pattern and the trenches themselves were of an irregular depth in places. Corr suspected some hasty extensions had been added recently, judging by some awkward bends and divots he'd spotted. The snowed plains of Hoth yawned before him. The air was pleasantly cool and still. Black and white mountains were wrinkles on the horizon and the sky was smeared with dark clouds. Corr tightened a bolt on a gun emplacement. He gave it an experimental swivel and flicked the safety off. Beside him, Leah was looking through a pair of binocs at the ridge in the distance.
"Still nothing?" asked Corr.
"Nothing", Leah lowered her binocs. "Visibility isn't great beyond the snowfield but no movement as far as I can see"
"The scouts spotted them just as they were deploying, right? We should be able to see them by now." Corr was fidgeting with his gloves. He pulled one of them off and bit at a fingernail. The action wasn't frantic but still urgent enough to catch Leah's eye. She turned her head to look at him. Her expression was one of concern.
"Corr, you're doing it again," she said.
"What?"
"The fingernail thing. Relax. We have a plan in place. If anything it's good they're overdue. The longer they take, the less time we need to hold them off for." Leah handed the binocs to him.
"I'm fine, honestly. It's just something I do ever since-", he caught himself quickly and looked through the binocs back at the ridge. "Where were you looking?"
"To the right side, where that opening is", Leah said. Corr knew she was pretending not to have noticed his slip-up. His face had heated up. He hated how raw and obvious his inexperience was. He tried to focus on the gap between the knuckles of mountain. Snow whirled in ribbons at the mouth of the ridge.

Another 30 minutes passed. The air was impossibly still, as if time outside of the trenches had halted. The silence was thick and grating. Corr handed a welder to Dar who was on his back looking up into his turret's wiring.
"These things are such a pain in the ass." Dar yanked out a plug. "I hear they're decommissioning them soon. I'll buy a round for the whole bar on that day."
"I'll try to join you for that," said Corr.
"I bet." Dar's welder hissed and popped. "At least you'll have earned it. I've watched Jan polish his rifle and stare into the distance for nearly an hour now."
"He does take sentry duty very seriously."
"Perhaps one day he'll spot something." Dar set down the welder and re-plugged the loose wiring. "That should do it. Flick the power on would you?"
Corr did so. The turret hummed to life. Dar stood up and brushed snow from himself.
"Leah told me you've picked up that habit again." Corr's jaw tightened. "Look, I know you've never wanted to talk about it but this is your first real experience on the frontlines. I'd rather not have to worry too much about you when things get chaotic. Will you be ok?" The firm tone of Dar's voice told Corr that this was not the time to deflect. The urge to chew at a nail began to itch again.
"Alright," said Corr.
"When did it start?"
"Just after I left prison."
"Left?" Dar lazily pressed some buttons on his turret remote. "I thought you escaped? You escaped and joined the rebellion straight after."
"No. I was technically let out. They wanted information out of me that someone else had. I was released once they realized they had the wrong person. But not before they'd tried every interrogation technique in the book."
Corr paused for a moment and took a deep breath. Then he slowly rolled up his left sleeve. Faded scars were revealed in the daylight. Dar's eyes widened slightly.
"They let me go." Corr covered his arm back up. "But there was no apology, no compensation, no acknowledgment of their mistake. They just sent me home, still bandaged. I couldn't face just going back to medic duty like nothing happened. I left to join up pretty much the next day."
Dar was silent for a few seconds. "I'm sorry," he said finally.
"Everyone has their story. To answer your first question: I'll be fine. I can do whatever is needed of me." Corr tried his best to sound convincing.
"That's the spirit." Dar smiled at him. "But don't be too hard on yourself or try to keep it suppressed. You'll only do more harm to yourself for something that's not your fault."
"I won't." Corr relaxed his shoulders. A light, cooling breeze had started to blow.

"I think it's time we gave Jan something to do. You want to swap out with him?" said Dar.
"Ok, but Leah has my binocs and I don't know- Wait, do you hear that?" Corr held up his hand.
"No. What?"
Corr shushed him and stood very still, trying to let his ears pick up the sound again. This time it was definite. A faint metallic creaking and clanking. At first, it seemed to be a cacophony but after a few more seconds Corr found a rhythm in amongst the mess.
Dar spoke up. "I hear it now too. They must be getting close. Can you see what's making it?"
Corr lifted his goggles and squinted into the distance. Without his binocs, it was almost impossible to discern anything from the hazy white background. The clanking had gotten slightly louder and clearer. He was about to say he couldn't spot anything but then a black, smudged speck caught his eye. Once he'd zeroed in on it, an adjacent, identical speck became visible. Then another on the other side. Then two more on the left suddenly became obvious. Their shapes had now become somewhat defined. They could almost be silhouettes of people standing in the distance. The clanking grew louder still. A clamour had started to emerge in the trenches as others noticed the figures. Suddenly a voice boomed through the silence.
"Positions, now!"
All around Corr, soldiers in the trench drew their blasters and took up frontline positions. Others who were behind leaped down and followed suit. Corr looked down the scope of his rifle. It only offered slight magnification but it was enough to make out what was coming towards them. He recognized the walkers from his home city. Lumbering, steel monstrosities. They used to patrol the wide streets at night, making the ground and the walls shake with each step they took. He remembered looking up at them in awe as a child, completely unaware of what they were capable of, or what they represented. Silence gripped the trenches once more. Neither side had opened fire yet, most likely due to being mutually out of range. Corr's heartbeat pulsed in his ears. His skin felt hot and prickly. The walkers were taking incremental steps forward, inching closer at a maddeningly slow pace. He looked quickly to his left and saw that Jan was next to him with a ramrod-stiff posture, peering down the scope of his weapon.
Without turning his head, Jan said, in a hushed tone, "Did you know Luke Skywalker is leading our air support?"
Corr nearly snapped at him but caught himself just before the first obscenity could come out.
"The guy who destroyed the Death Star?" Corr had never met him personally but the story had circulated his squad hundreds of times. What caught him off guard was Jan initiating this without needing prompting. He had been quite sure Jan didn't know what small talk was.
"I met him once." Jan said, "I told him he was the best pilot I'd ever seen, and we traded tips on blowing up space stations."
Corr stayed quiet for a moment, before letting out a genuine laugh. The tension of the moment seemed to ease.
"Let's hope he lives up to-" mid-sentence, Corr's eardrums were suddenly shattered. Just ahead of him, there was an eruption of hot, orange flame. Corr felt his teeth vibrate from the impact. A violent spray of snow was scattered over the trench and pelted Corr like shrapnel. The sound boomeranged in his ears. He heard a second impact, this time further away. Then a third and a fourth. The bombardment soon became constant.
"Open fire!" came another command. A barrage of return fire let loose from rebel soldiers and artillery.

Corr pushed himself against the snow wall of the trench. The shock of the first blast had left his body feeling light and airy from adrenaline so he forcefully gripped his rifle tighter and looked hard down the scope. An AT-AT stared him down with its Cyclops eye. He let loose a few bolts and tracked them as they flew towards the walker. They dissipated harmlessly upon hitting the plated steel. He lowered his sights to the same walker's front left knee joint and fired another volley of shots to the same result. His frustration began to simmer. Corr looked to his left at Jan. He had to shout to be heard over the bombardment.
"I can't even make a scratch on those things!"
Jan didn't turn to look at him. Another shell impacted about ten metres in front of them and snow burst up like steam from a geyser.
"Don't bother, you won't get through that armour. Just look for ground troops or smaller mechs and do what you can."
"Where the hell is the air support?"
As if on cue, Corr picked up on a low drone emanating from behind like a faraway insect swarm. Its volume rose quickly before peaking at an all-out scream as snowspeeders tore past overhead. They flew in tight formation and slowly lowered until they were practically skimming across the frozen fields toward the walkers. Corr was mesmerized for a moment. Another nearby explosion pulled him back. This one had landed perhaps a foot in front of the trench just to his right. His eardrums were battered again as he covered his face and turned away on instinct. Bullets of snow rained on his back. He turned his head back to look at the aftermath.