Saga ~~Rebel Cause~~ ***FINISHED!!!!*** pre-ESB, H/L, Luke

Thanks, RebelMom! I'll have another post by this afternoon.

 

Ugh! I can't believe I let you read those last two posts! They were aweful!! I've made grammar, spelling, and sytntax corrections. That's what I get for rushing!


SORRYYYY!!

Still expectt he next post this afternoon.

Thanks.

 

Okay, I lost track of time drawing... and now I'm out of free time! More in a bit!

Thanks for keeping up!

 

Okay folks, here's what happens next... from a different perspective for this story. Enjoy.

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Captain Nols, third in his class at the Academy, twice honored for exemplory conduct in battle, leader of the successful Thejt Offensive, found that there was no dignified way to pick himself up off the polished command deck of the Interdictor Cruiser, [i]Embolus[/i]. His head throbbed from the knock it had taken, and his ankle felt as though it had been hyper-extended in the fall. None of this fed his drive more than the seering anger he felt toward his helm crew. The captain righted himself, glanced behind him at the fused and smoldering console that had shorted out in the collision, and marched slowly--so as to mask his fresh limp--up the command deck to look down into the helm control pit. He motioned behind him to the pair of security officers stationed at the bridge's main entrance.

"Sir...," stammered the chief helmsman.

"How is it possible," Nols said with mocking calmness, "that you managed to land a state-of the-art, technologically superior Imperial [i]Immobiliser[/i]-class cruiser atop a lumbering barge?"

"Sir, if I may," came the junior duty officer from within the pit, "the freighter seems to have been accelerating and was not issuing an identity beacon."

Nols did not break eye contact with the chief. "What is your subordinate suggesting, Helmsman?"

The chief cleared his throat and found his nerve to answer. "He means to say that we didn't see the freighter, Captain. With no transponder beacon, and accelerating toward the nav coordinates, our sensors could not isolate and track him in time."

The two armed security officers came to stand behind the captain. "Impotence compounded by excuses," Nols scoffed. "Feel fortunate that Lord Vader is not here to deal with your ineptitude." He nodded to the security officers, before adding, "He would have made this far more unpleasant." He turned with a brisk snap to his heels and, careful to mask the pain arcing up his leg, returned to stand behind the communications center.

Four cacaphonous discharges reported the blaster fire in quick succession as Nols advised the comm officer, "Instruct the [i]Firebrand[/i] and the [i]Stolle[/i] to take up opposing orbits over the planet. Instruct them to monitor atmospheric traffic from their positions and keep me appraised."

"Sir," the officer acknowledged, and relayed the orders to the [i]Embolus'[/i] two Strike class escorts.

As the security officers carried the lifeless body of the chief helmsman off the bridge, Nols asked the nearby senior tactical officer for a status report on the forward shield repairs. The informant Kroder had not given a specific time the rebel fleet would be arriving. He didn't want to be vulnerable when he met them in orbit. The tactical officer's news was not reassuring: "The crews were still trying to get through the wreckage to the forward shield generator housing." Other crews were working on rerouting the shield units still active, but it did not look promising.

The imbecile chief helmsman had managed--in what came to be his final action as a living being--to throw Nols' command into utter chaos. With reports still coming in from the prow of the ship, he was learning that the damage was far more extensive than he'd first imagined. The [i]Embolus'[/i] forward turbolasers were offline or destroyed, as well as the ship's forward storage facilities. Sensory equipment, navigational thrusters, and occupied personnel barracks were among the list of resources destroyed in the collision.

Hardly designed to be the 'head of the spear' in combat, the frigate-sized cruiser lacked sufficient firepower to take on the inbound fleet. Lord Vader had ordered the [i]Embolus'[/i] group into the system ahead of the fleet for the sole purpose of preventing escape. Nols was also the closest to the system, having been monitoring Kroder's occassional update transmissions. He hadn't expect to fight the fleet on his own, but the Interdictor had been fully capable o

 

Here's the next post.

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Han dialed up the inertial compensators, easing the forces of gravity that were pushing them all back into their seats. They flared through the atmosphere at what Threepio would have called a dangerously steep and velocious re-entry, coming to settle beside the three remaining Soro-Suub haulers at the outpost ruins. The hull steamed in the frigid air as the sublight drives vented waste gases out onto the snow.

"There's always room for a surprise or two," he said as he left the outrigger cockpit. This apparently ended another dispute, this time over the course of action Han was about to take. Leia felt it was a dire waste of resources, but Han believed these resources were irreversibly tainted. She followed him down the corridor, wrapping herself up in her thermal vest and jacket. His own heavy jacket was already fastened closed as Chewie lowered the ramp from the cockpit. Han didn't wait for it to embed in the snow before disembarking.

The two surviving rebel pilots were waiting for him just beyond the [i]Falcon's[/i] starboard mandible. He quickly outlined his intentions as they trudged through the snow toward the haulers.

While Han carried out his plan, Leia and Chewie carried the body of the murdered female pilot aboard the [i]Falcon[/i] to be taken back to the Alliance. While they had been chasing Kroder in the upper atmosphere, the others had wrapped her body in a sealable tarpulin.

They'd left Gribb where he fell.

With a moment's reprieve in the battle, she slumped against the bulkhead and fought back her fatigue. After the victory at Yavin, there had been a short-lived resergence of hope that a favorable end to the Civil War was within sight. That hope had slipped when the Alliance had been forced to retreat from the abandoned Massassi ruins, and it faltered even now as they were chased across the galaxy by the Empire. Soon, they would get their chance to escape to their clandestine haven, code named Echo Base.

That location was very similar to this, all ice. It was secluded and away from the Corellian Trade Spine deep in the Outer Rim, making it an opportune, if not entirely hospitable, locale for a secret base. And there was a great deal yet to learn about the planet Hoth, much like this place.

Leia's mind wandered back to the scorched gash she'd seen in the wall of the old outpost. She let herself imagine a striking, heroic Jedi in a blazing stand-off against overwhelming forces. Her mind drummed up images of the Knights of the Old Republic, as they'd been described by her father, Bail Organa: all flowing, humble robes and fluid movement to match, with a kind of magic guiding them to victory.

She caught herself yearning for the help and guidance of these long lost keepers of justice and pushed the thoughts aside. She knew the notion of any Jedi returning to help in the fight against the Emperor was as realistic as a child's bedtime story. As far as she knew, the hope of the Jedi had died with General Kenobi on the Death Star, who had been cut down by the crimson blade of Darth Vader. Luke had told her after the Battle of Yavin about Kenobi's history with the evil Sith Lord. She didn't need more reasons to so savagely despise that beast, yet Kenobi's sad tale of betrayal added another familiar face to the long list seeking vengence.
[hr]



Not a very long one. Sorry about that, but you may be happy to know, the end is approaching!!!

Stay Tuned!

Oh yes, and any comments are welcome. ;)

 

sorry I missed that last post. All caught up.

 

Yay!! I thought I'd lost everyone (I actually, I think I did, save you, RM).

We're so close to the end! I can't wait!!

 

****NEW POST!!****

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Luke didn't stick around to watch the fireworks borne from his torpedoes. He peeled his X-wing away from the oncoming bridge tower to strafe the portside gravity generator dome as he sped past. He scanners told him he'd scored a hit with the torps, but had only pocked the generator's hull casing. He juked upward in a corkscrew turn to fly across the interdictor's hull, expecting the return fire that never came, and punched his throttle to full, escaping over the rear drive assembly.

Dack, meanwhile, was "whooping" loudly into the comm. "I don't believe that, Luke!" he was saying. "That was incredible!"

"Don't celebrate yet," he countered. His tactical display still indicated power to the cruiser's undamaged laser and turbolaser batteries. His short range scanner picked up movement over Stu'klaag's poles. "She's not out of the fight, and it looks like we've caught the attention of those Strikes." Far behind the crusier, now, Luke pulled his fighter's nose up and around to bring the Interdictor's starfire-blue engine cones back into his line of sight.

The Strike cruisers were coming about to defend the wounded interdictor, but they were still too far away out of range at the moment. Luke gauged the amount of time he still had and focused his targeting reticle on the interdictor's now shieldless aft drives. His finger ligered over the trigger, waiting for the topedo lock.

Several new blips appeared on his tactical screen. Their neutral-unidentifying blue designations flahed to a welcome green even as a familiar voice announced the arrival of Renegade Flight.

"Welcome to Stu'klaag, Boss," offered Luke. "Sorry about the mess; we haven't had time to clean."

"You seem to have a knack for finding trouble, Skywalker." Commander Narra's voice was cool and dry as he took in the situation. By Narra's command, Luke disengaged his target lock and, along with Dack, intagrated into Renegade's full squadron of X-Wings as they escorted the single [i]Action VI[/i] transport toward the planet.

Newly acquired in a raid against an Imperial post in the Farriiz Sector, the [i]Action VI[/i] bulk transport had a cargo capacity of just over ninety thousand metric tons, easily cabable of holding the freight stores brought here in the four smaller Soro-Suub haulers, and with room to spare. The problem was not with it's load factor, but rather with it's defenselessness. The [i]Action VI's[/i] were slow, shieldless and unarmed, and thus depended wholly on its escort detail for protection.

Like a predator sensing weak prey, the Strike cruisers were gathering velocity now as they moved in from the planet's poles. According to Luke's readings, the [i]Action VI[/i] would make it into the atmosphere and safely out of the grasp of the spacefaring cruisers well before they could intervene. What surprised Luke was that, despite its active laser batteries, the interdictor cruiser--well within combat range--was making no move to stop them. The gravity generators were not even online. He wondered if they'd dealt it a more serious blow than he thought.

An alert from the tactical scanners showed four new ships entering the fray, this time coming up from the planet's surface. They were identified immediately as the three remaining Soro-Suub haulers, with [i]Millenium Falcon[/i] leading the pack. Their vector indicated a clear line straight for the interdictor.

"Red Five," came Commander Narra's voice, "I was led to believe we're leaving the haulers here for security reasons."

"That was the plan, sir." Luke keyed in an alternate frequency and hailed the [i]Falcon[/i].

"We're modifying your suicide attack, Kid," was Han's answer. Luke watched as the three haulers broke free of the planet's gravity and sped, unfettered, toward the triangular ship. The [i]Falcon[/i] then scissored away from the haulers and toward the inbound Renegade group.

The Strike cruiser on the far side of the interdictor fired on the haulers as closed withi

 

I like how you have Luke thinking about his fantasy father, but somehow knowing that his ideas of a selfless father are untrue. boy will he be in for a shock.

 

Thanks, RebelMom. I'm finding that in the realms of authorized EU (and certainly in canon), we haven't really been given a good glimpse at Luke's feelings for his father prior to the huge revelation (queue Dah-duh-duhhhhh music) in ESB. I've been thinking it's a huge vein that can still be tapped! And there's so much to play with, when you think about it.

We know Luke idolized the old stories of the Jedi (even though he didn't know what the Force was until Ben told him--kids today, sheesh), and once he learned that his father was not just a navigator on a spice freighter, but an actual Jedi who fought in the Clone Wars, one would think his imagination would be full of wild renderings of his father, the hero.

At the same time, though, Luke has much of his father in him (obviosuly), and is highly sensitive to the Force. I imagine he may subconsciously pick up on the "wrongness" of these renderings as the Force tries to point out to him that Anakin was no angel.

Even at the point of revelation, Luke believes deep down that Vader is his father. Vader picks up on this when he says, <heavy breathing> "Search your feelings; you know it to be true." </heavy breathing>

So what goes through Luke's mind as each transition is made? The image of his father changesfrom navigator of a spice freighter to Hero and Jedi to evil encarnate.

That's gotta mess a kid up! Hmm... I think I feel another story coming on... No, no, I promise I'll post the end to this one first.

The epilogue is forthcoming....

 

Darn those plot bunnies.

 

Aren't they great.

One last post. Enjoy!!!

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[hl=darkblue][color=white][b]Epilogue[/b][/color][/hl]


The clear cerulean sky allowed the system's only star to shine its radiance upon the snow covered plateau, adding to the misleading image of a warm, sunny day. In point of contrast, Commander Sande could feel the insides of his nose crystalize each time he inhaled the freezing air. He stood at the base of the landing craft's ramp and squinted up into the sky. Above him, he could see a [i]Lamda[/i]-class shuttle dropping through the atmosphere, and beyond that he could make out the pale silhouette of the flagship of the Imperial Death Squadron: the Super Star Destroyer, [i]Executor[/i].

"Truly a waste of resources, that one." Sande's opinion was matched throughout the fleet, but was seldom voiced. The Super Star Destroyer was designed to reign through sheer mass, not efficiency.

"Sir?" questioned the stormtrooper standing behind him.

"Nothing, Sergeant."

The [i]Lamda[/i] gently descended on its repulsors, rotating as it came, like an avian searching for a comfortable position in which to rest. Its wings folded up to either side of its massive dorsal stabilizer, and it's landing struts deployed, locking in place seconds before touchdown. The entry ramp extended from beneath the shuttle's neck.

First off the craft was the Sith Lord, a stark, black contrast to the white of the surroundings. Behind him came two Blizzard Force elite officers, bedecked in full cold-weather attire. The snowtroopers came off the shuttle, carbines held up and tucked against their breastplates like a coiled viper eager to strike.

Commander Sande approached with as much haste as he could without losing the composure demanded of Imperial officers. "Lord Vader, my team has inspected the ruins, and have found no hint of the rebels. You did not need--"

The shadowy figure did not halt his pace, but the chisled ebony mask turned his way. Sande felt his legs turn to elastic, and he fought to keep from collapsing in fear. A gloved hand came up to point toward him emphatically. "Do not presume to comprehend what I do and do not need, Commander. I have already examined your appraisal of this debacle."

"Of course, my lord," Sande stammered. "May I ask, then, why you've come?"

The dark lord reached the entrance to the abandoned outpost and paused before entering. "You needn't concern yourself with my motives. Complete your survey here, Commander. We will be departing the system momentarily." With that, he disappeared into the facility.

"Yes, sir," Sande offered--he couldn't be sure if Vader could still hear him, or if he was even paying attention, but protocol was protocol.

Via comlink, he received a report from his survey crew that they'd completed their assignments in the surrounding plains and were on their way back to the lander aboard hoversleds.

Sande stepped through the entry way, intent upon advising Darth Vader as to their imminent departure. He paused when he saw at the far end of the debris-strewn chamber the capacious silhouette apparently studying the wall. He bent forward, running a gloved hand slowly across its pocked surface, as though he were tracing a line. He straightened abruptly--so abruptly that Sande blanched--and stepped back, still facing the wall. For an eternity, the universe was silent, save the continuous, rhythmic breathing of a mechanical respirator. It was almost nightmarishly hypnotic.

And then he spoke, softly for a deep, augmented voice, though he still did not turn from the wall. "What is it, Commander?"

Sande stiffened. "Sir, my field agents have reported in. They are en route to the lander, and we will be proceeding shortly back to the [i]Stolle[/i]."

Now he did turn, and the sight of that visage triggered within Sande the primal fear found in all humans--that Fight-or-Flight mechanism of self-preservation. His Imperial training managed to stay his retreat, barely. "Good," Vader comment. He marched with purpose toward the egress

 

Congratulations on completion.

What so interested Vader about that wall? I can't remember if it had something to do with Luke or not.

 

That, RebelMom, is another story.

Muuwaahahaha

It's a plot bunny.

 

The next story is set in the New Republic era, before the NJO books, but after Luke has started the Yavin 4 praxeum.

I've just begun writing it.

 

Wow, cool! I have my suspicions about what interested Vader in that wall. I loved the interactions, how much we got to see of Dack this time around, the tense situations. Great job, Cheveyo.

 

Thanks for reading, DarthIshtar!

 

Shameless up in the hopes of acquiring more readers.



Enjoy!

 

up.