Prologue
The tauntaun snorted. Beside it, its handler soothed it with a calming voice. It reared up to its height of seven feet and honked- a frightened, alarmed noise. “What’s wrong, girl?” the handler asked. Here in Echo Base’s tauntaun pens, the creatures didn’t usually become upset like this. He petted the animal and tried to ease its nerves, but the beast was spooked by something. “No one here’s going to hurt you.”
A man passing by said “It probably smells me. I cut one of those things open yesterday, and the stink is still all over me.” The tauntaun handler, with a horrified look on his face, turned to watch the man walk away. The tauntaun began shrieking and pacing inside its pen.
Han Solo was in a very bad mood. He walked through Echo Base stripping his outer clothes off, throwing them into waste bins. He’d just been rescued along with Luke Skywalker. He’d spent the night outside, on the surface of Hoth, in a hastily made shelter while Skywalker was cocooned within a tauntaun’s mortal shell. Skywalker was comatose, so Solo couldn’t even have someone to talk to. He had to sit there and try to concentrate on keeping warm, all the while doing his best to ignore the incredible stench of the snow lizard’s innards. It had been a long night. Their rescue came early this morning. Now he was safe, but he still stank of tauntaun… which maddened him. He needed fresh clothes and a shower. Then, he’d take his reward money and leave for Tattooine. Maybe Jabba’d be in a good mood.
“Captain Solo,” called a voice from behind him.
He kept walking. “Later,” he muttered.
“No: now, please.”
He stopped in his tracks, sighed, and said “What can I do for you, oh, my lady liege?” It was the best sarcastic intonation he could manage, given his condition.
Princess Leia Organa stepped forward. “You can’t leave.”
“We had this conversation yesterday, princess. It ended with me leaving anyway, and you professing your interest in kissing a wookiee. Remember?”
“No, I mean it. General Rieekan’s decision. No ships are leaving Echo Base until the shield generator is fully functional. He doesn’t think it’s safe.”
Han rolled his eyes and put his hand out to lean on the wall. “You’re kidding.”
Leia shook her head. “No. We’re getting reports of imperial probe droids being dispatched to all areas of the galaxy, and we’d rather have everyone ready if one should spot a ship leaving.”
“I’ll ask Rieekan about this myself… perhaps get it from a source who isn’t quite so hung up on me, and would benefit from my staying.”
The princess’s face contorted with unbelieving disgust. “You swine. If you’re dying to leave, why don’t you ride another tauntaun into the sunset and stay there, for all I care?” She pivoted on one heel and walked away, hands clenched into fists.
Han stood there for a moment, then yelled after her. “WELL I JUST MIGHT, PRINCESS, IF I WEREN’T SO SURE YOU’D TRY SNUGGLING UP TO CHEWBACCA IN MY ABSENSE!!” From behind him, he heard a confused snuffle. He looked to see Chewie staring at him from the roof of the Falcon with his welder’s goggles flipped up. “Never mind, furball,” he said miserably. He walked towards the command center and found General Rieekan poring over some tactical land maps. “General,” he called. Rieekan looked up and smiled.
“Captain Solo. Good to see you. I’m assuming you’ve heard-“
“Yes, no ships are to leave Echo Base. Princess Charming just notified me. So it’s true, then?”
Rieekan shifted his feet. “Uh, yes. I’m sorry to do this to you, I know you were planning on leaving soon. It’ll only be a day or two until the shield is up.”
Han thought for a moment. “General, when I spoke to you yesterday about leaving, you didn’t mention anything about this. What’s happened in the meantime? Why are you prohibiting ships from leaving now?”
Rieekan froze. He was no good at lying, Han could see. “Uh…” he stammered. “I just had second thoughts about the merits of having starships seen entering and leaving Hoth’s atmosphere when we don’t even have a proper shield up.”
“Ahh, I see.” Han pretended to believe the lie, and walked away. “I KNEW she couldn’t stand to be without me,” he whispered to himself. He sneered as his nose reminded him of how badly he smelled, and he reclaimed his original course: walking to the shower. He stopped again when he noticed a strange ship in the hangar. It wasn’t like anything he’d seen recently… it looked like one of the old red republic ships. Scuffed, dirty, beautiful. “Hey, Chewie,” he called. The wookiee looked up. “Whose ship is this?” Chewbacca growled three times. “’Some woman’s’? Thanks, that’s helpful.” Chewie barked a low-pitched rumble. Han nodded. “Yeah, it is nice. Definitely not standard Rebellion stock.” He admired it a moment more, then made his third- and triumphant- attempt to walk through the hangar towards the showers without distraction.
As he walked, he was watched from a doorway. The door closed. Behind it, a woman in elegant white robes spoke incredulously. “Princess, I beg your pardon, but we have this man to thank, largely, for the destruction of the Death Star?”
Leia replied. “Yes, but I can assure you, he’s every inch a professional pilot.”
The woman looked into Leia’s eyes and saw something there. “He's special, isn’t he?” she asked, not quite asking.
Leia turned red and looked away, then cleared her throat. “Why is our council here to be so secretive, may I ask?”
The woman said “The information we’ve gathered is highly classified. It’s necessary that we keep it out of the ears of people whom we may not entirely trust. This includes wookiees, droids, prospective Jedi… and good-looking smuggler pilots.” She smiled. Seeing Leia’s discomfort, she backed down. “The truth is that this is more than just classified information, princess. This is to be the assemblage of a secret mission team. I’m sorry that you had to lie to your friends, but we need secrecy. The Empire seems hardly crippled by our destruction of the Death Star. This means that we need to find out where they’re keeping their reinforcement bases. Where they do their training, where they do their construction, where they plan how they'll strike back against us. Have you notified the heroes I’ve asked you to assemble? Can we expect them soon?”
Leia said “Yes, they should be here in just a moment.”
Mon Mothma relaxed in her seat. “Good,” she said. They sat and waited, bathed in the eerie light of Luke Skywalker’s Bacta Tank.
Next: the Game begins
