Hoth's Open Terrain

Adrenaline pumped through the ewok's veins as he prepared to defend himself again from the skel that had attacked him, fortunately there was no need. Mal's shot took the alien in the head, spraying skull fragments and grey matter as the inside of the savage's head painted the snow. Tarfang raised a paw, offering his mandalorian companion a thumbs up as he tried to regain his senses after having his head repeatedly bonked into the ground. By the time he managed to get back to his feet, he found himself carried off them as Mal pushed him out of the way of the massive dragon slug emerging from the cave entrance. A look of fear crossed the captain's furry features as he took in the sight of the long toothless serpent, blinking his good eye several times to make sure what he was seeing was real. It was bigger than a Gorax, maybe as big as a space slug even. How in the seven space-ways was anyone supposed to kill something like that? Groaning, he saw Grimfang was there beside him, also apparently saved by Mal. Unfortunately the same couldn't be said for the mando. Tarfang spotted him on the far side of the sink hole, slowing pulling himself up to sit against the ice wall.

Phew, still alive. A good thing too since it was unlikely they stood a chance without him.

When he saw his armoured comrade fire an assorted barrage of projectiles at the shaman, Tarfang decided to join in as well. He fired his blaster at any skel he came across, using the weapons range to keep the filthy primitives away from him. Any that got by him had Grimfang to contend with, and the snowok was a force of nature, slashing this way and that with his spear, severing limbs and impaling tusked aliens with relish. A thunderous crash sounded as Mal's whipcord stunned the beast, dropping its head to the snow. From his position, he could see Mal scaling the dragon's head to get to the shaman, which gave the surly captain an idea.

In his youth he spent his days scaling trees like any other wokling. Now he wasn't young anymore and the dragon slug was no tree, but some things you never really forget. Digging his paws into the creature's thick hide from the tail end, he began to climb, pulling himself up one paw at a time. After a minute he got to the top, breathing hard from the exertion. He looked across the monster's back and spotted Mal trying just about every weapon he had on the shaman, but some sort of barrier prevented any of his attacks from getting through. Then the shaman lowered its shiny scepter and blasted the mandalorian at point blank range, sending him hurtling off the slug's back.

"NOOO!"

Distraught at what he perceived as the mando's demise, rage welled in the ewok's breast, replacing the fear he had felt only moments ago. Snarling like a feral wookiee, he charged across the slug's back, driving his shoulder into a skel that had just scaled the beast as well and flinging the savage back down to the ice below. He ducked a thrown spear, spun and fired his bryar pistol at the skel that had thrown it, and kept on running. As he came within a dozen paces of the shaman he stopped, his feet sliding across the rubbery surface. The skel shaman turned, snorting a cloud of steam as it fixed its beady eyes on Tarfang, the scepter in it hands crackling with arcane power.

"You shouldn't have done that." Growled Tarfang, holstering his pistol and throwing back the right side of his coat to reveal the ornate gilded hilt of a lightfoil hanging from the inner lining. He wrapped his paw around the cylindrical device and pointed the emitter down, then thumbed the activation stud. Snap/Hiss! A thin acid yellow blade lanced from the hilt's emitter out to a meter in length, sizzling as it seared the thick hide of the creature. He placed his other paw on the hilt and raised it, holding it across his body before taking a step forwards, his single eye bulging with fury in its socket. Laughing mockingly, the shaman pointed its staff at Tarfang and unleashed another blast of ethereal energy. Years of practice as a saber rake kicked in and the elderly ewok intercepted the bolt with his blade, somehow impossible as it may seem, deflecting the magical bolt towards the ground below. It struck a skell and the savage exploded in a cloud of meaty bits and crimson mist.

Down below as the beast began to awake, Grimfang ran in front of its face and waved his spear, trying to get the monster's attention on him and away from Mal. The snowok made several obscene gestures before running away from the mando. Taking the bait, the dragon slug's massive head turned and began to pursue the snowok chief, spewing a trail of fire after him.

Hesitantly at first, Grimfang reached out a paw and wrapped his finger claws around the scepter's handle, staring into the glowing head of the arcane device. Standing next to the mando, once more with his cane in hand and now feeling the weight of his exertions, Captain Tarfang looked from the device back to the corpse of the shaman still cooling in the snow nearby.

Odd. The device seemed too well sculpted to have been crafted by such a primitive race, even by one of their mystics. In fact, if the scepter was what controlled the beast, it stood to reason the shaman had never had any real power of its own. But where had the object come from? And why was it created in the first place? So many questions, though for now he had only one.

While Grimfang stared into the head of the staff, somewhat mesmerized by it, Tarfang snapped his fingers beside the snowoks horned head. It seemed to break the trance and the snowok chief looked at Tarfang, then back at Mal before nodding.


Beside Mal, Tarfang balked, practically spitting as whatever Grimfang told him was enough to surprise him. The elderly ewok then began to chortle, bending at the waist as a full bodied laugh shook his tired bones. After a moment he brought a paw under his good eye, wiping away a tear that had formed from laughing too hard. He reached into his coat and pulled out his pipe, lighting the bowl end before bringing the bit to his mouth and taking in a long draw.

"Grimfang says a deal is a deal." He exhaled a plume of smoke. "He says the collapsium is under your ship. Apparently we parked right on top of the deposit. Har har har! Mischievous bugger." Grabbing the snowok by his horns, he pulled the chief into a headlock and grinded his paw into the top of his head, before releasing him with another chuckle. "Ha. Wish you would have just told us that."

Extending a claw expectantly, the snowok motioned towards Tarfang's pipe. The pirate took one last toke before handing it over, then looked up at Mal.

"I think with a couple of tweaks, we should be able to extract the collapsium using that old basilisk of yours. Just gotta dial down the intensity setting on its pulsewave cannon." He then looked at the dragon slug, cooing peacefully, before focusing his good eye on the scepter in Grimfang's possession. "Hey, let's not ride the tauntauns back. I got a better idea."

It was a little sad to see his cousin go, but he was thankful the tribe now had a new guardian to protect them. Given time, who knew what might become of the snowoks? Perhaps they'd be the first people to conquer the wilderness and really settle this frozen ball of rock. That said, if this was the last time he smelled tauntaun, he'd die a happy 'wok.

Tarfang supervised as Mal worked away on the war droid, occasionally sipping from a bladder skin Grimfang had traded him for his pipe. He wiped a paw across his lips and let out a small belch. This fermented wampa milk was starting to grow on him. He waddled over to what the mando had called 'Scythe' and inspected the droid curiously, being careful not to get too close to its feet.

"They don't make em like this anymore." He said, running a paw over the droids exterior before pausing to cover his mouth as he let out another burp, which he followed up with another swig from the skin. "Ol'uncle Bobafang, may the Great Tree rest his soul, claimed he used to work on these, said your people actually flew them into battle. We all thought he was nuts, what with him also saying he was the first ewok mandalorian, but he was also the only ewok I'd ever seen use a jetpack so maybe he wasn't as crazy as we thought. I do remember him telling me that he'd never seen a sturdier piece of equipment, and that's saying something because he'd seen me build a hang-glider."

Between swigs of spirits, Tarfang fiddled with a medical scanner he had been tinkering with earlier. A couple adjustments and it was able to scan the surface of the ice for buried collapsium deposits. Just like Grimfang had said, the device seemed to think there was a descent supply directly below them. R3 rolled down the ramp of the ship, holding a small extractor device in its utility arm. Fortunately they only needed a tiny amount, so the smaller size of the device wouldn't be a problem. It was never a good idea to store more collapsium than you needed. It had a tendency to explode. With his cane, the elderly captain drew an X mark in the snow.

"This is the best spot, I think. The scanner says its seven meters down...all ice too, which is probably what's kept it stable. I wouldn't melt more than six and a half meters down though. We can use a plasma torch and a chisel for the last couple of centimeters."

"Yeah, leave it just like that." He replied as he studied the screen of the modified scanning device held in one paw, while periodically taking a puff from his new pipe with the other. Satisfied with the results, he wheeled a plasma torch over to the newly created hole and sat down on the edge before slipping in. He slid all the way to the bottom, then got back up on his feet and started sparking the torch. A small burning tip emerged from the nozzle and Tarfang began to slowly melt through the last few inches of ice, stopping a nerve-rackingly close 5 centimeters from the deposit. Removing a chisel from his pocket, he chipped away the last few centimeters, stopping just shy of piecing the last protective ice layer.

"R3! The extractor!" He shouted out the hole. The astromech wheeled over to the pit with the device held in its utility arm, then released it once it was hovering over the opening. "Ow!" The captain yelled a moment later, the extractor having bonked his head after dropping into the hole.

Rubbing his sore noggin, the ewok broke the last layer of ice and plunged one end of the device into the hole, watching as it quickly sucked up the precious gas, which was currently in liquid form due to the pressure and temperature it had been under. After a few minutes he had enough. Removing the extractor, he did his best to seal the hole with ice and snow, then quickly scaled the side of the hole. His old bones creaked as he pulled himself up over the edge, rolling onto his back and breathing hard for a moment. When his breathing eased, he sat up and held the extractor over his head to show Mal.


Getting back to his feet, Tarfang shook the snow from his fur and looked back across the vast fields of ice and snow. Not a tree in a sight. Shaking his head, he turned to the mando.

Well actually...

"As a species, no, but it just so happens one of my nephews is a wookiee. Chewfang. He's a few jawas short of a sandcrawler, if ya catch my meaning, but he's a good lad." He said, puffing away. "He's actually with the Jedi Lords on Ossus right now. All the village shamans on the Forest Moon up and disappeared a while back, so I sent him and the other future shaman candidates there for safekeeping. If the duloks ever found out..." He shuddered at the thought. "...well, lets just say it wouldn't be good. They're just so darn evil."

Tarfang spat on the deck superstitiously, then remembered that it wasn't his ship and proceeded to wipe it away with the bottom of his furry foot. While Mal was working on his armour, the pirate brought the container of collapsium and began the process of installing it in the seismic charge. After a few moments of tinkering, he took a step back and nodded approvingly of his work.

"Oh she'll go boom alright. This baby will explode bigger than the a hutts refresher after chili night." That's an image you never forget. He grabbed the bombs casing and pulled himself up, swinging his legs around so that he was sitting on top of it, watching Mal as he worked. "The real trick will be to get it close to Kaine, but first we need to find him. I think that if you get us to Zeltros, someone ought to be able to point us in the right direction once we're there. That planet has plenty of palms happy to be greased for information."

Through the white winter gloves Endor was wearing over his hands, he could feel the vibrations of the HAVw A6 Juggenaut as it raced over the snow dunes, smashing its way through the icy tundra as the plow affixed to the front cleared a path through even the most frigid of terrain. Holding the steering wheel with his left hand, he reached down and pressed forwards on the throttle, giving the old war machine a bit more gas, accelerating to top speed. All the while the tech sitting next to him in the co-pilots seat was watching the scanners, looking for any sign of life out in the remote wastes of Hoth. Large snow chains fitted around each tire tore up the tundra beneath its spinning wheels, while occasionally the rotary laser turret would fire a coherent beam of deadly red energy into the sky to give away their position.

The strategy was fairly simple. They wanted to be found. Tarfang's information had only given Endor the faintest idea where the lost tribe of abominable snowoks maintained their camp, so he was hoping they'd make contact first once they saw his old ride tearing around their territory. It was the very same juggernaut he had used on Shili all those years ago when confronting the supernatural entity known as Diva. He recalled that back then its thick armour and plethora of guns hadn't felt like enough.

As the vehicle plowed through the next dune, a flash appeared before his eyes as something sharp struck the transparasteel window slit in the juggernaut's forward compartment. Endor's eyes widened as he saw a crack in the material, at the centre of which appeared to be a primitive arrowhead crafted from super dense ice. He reached forwards to touch it and immediately withdrew his hand as he felt the sharp bite of the cold still lingering on the arrowhead. He pulled back on the throttle and cranked the steering wheel, causing the juggernaut to drift into a complete stop. A second arrowhead impact the window slit, then a third, spiderwebbing the glass. Cursing, Endor spun his chair around and hopped out of his seat, pulling the technician with him before the front panel shattered completely. Pounding his gloved palm on the switch for the door, he opened a hatch to the outside and stepped out, dropping several feet to the snow.

Endor's booted feet were cushioned by a pillow of air as he landed in the snow, bracing his knees slightly before straightening and leaping out of the way of several incoming arrows. Within a heartbeat his wooden lightsaber hilt was in his hands. He thumbed the activation stud and moved his arms, intercepting two arrows as his brilliant white blade sprang to life, turning both projectiles to ash. Bending his knees, he leapt into the air, using the exterior of the juggernaut as a wall to run up. As he reached the top edge he pushed off into a spinning leap that threw his body into the air. When he came down, the nimble Jedi landed beside a chalk white fur bear holding a bow, half submerged in the snow. The abominable snowok's feral red eyes seemed to widen in surprise, but not fear. It brought its bow around, quickly knocking an arrow only to have Endor's lightsaber blade shear through the weapon's wooden haft. He drew on the Force, becoming one with Hoth's natural environment, letting the ice and snow become an extension of his being. Through the Force he could sense each of the ewok-kin, feeling the hostility they were projecting as they defended their home from outsiders. He needed to do something before this turned bloody.

Using his affinity for the Living Force to manipulate the wind, Endor began to form a winter vortex around his white robed body, spinning clockwise around him. More arrows shot towards him, only to be sucked into the spiraling winds and ground into twigs against the icy tundra. He channeled some of that energy into his lungs, projecting his voice far and wide, his words carried on the wind.


His words, spoken in his native tongue of Ewokese, had the desired effect he sought. The arrows stopped as he could see the snowoks lowering their weapons from their half concealed positions. A striped snowok wearing half a skell skull on top of its hood approached Endor, carrying a wooden spear with a glowing blue spear tip that appeared to be made out of some rare form of ice, the same as the arrowheads if he wasn't mistaken. Endor deactivated his lightsaber, but kept the hilt resting in his left hand as this ornately dressed snowok walked up to him, stopping a few feet away.

After forging an alliance with the skel, the Alliance had the planetary resources required to begin domesticating wampa ice-beasts. Endor saw domestication as a long term solution to the wampa problem. Periodically the creatures would get bold enough to attack the base or rebel tauntaun riders out on the ice fields. But if the growing organization could get their hands on some of the ice beasts and train them properly, they could be used to deter others of the species from attacking, while providing the Alliance with a useful resource on the ground. Thus it was that Endor found himself back in the field, riding atop the back of his personal tauntaun, galloping over the ice fields in the company of several similarly mounted abominable snowoks. Endor had named his mount after famous war time hero Admiral Ackbar, though most commonly he referred to the beast as simply the Admiral. She was large for a tauntaun, half a head taller than the others of the pack, and seemed to have a near limitless supply of stamina. He could sense through the Force that the creature was still ready to run for several kilometers more, despite having already pushed it beyond the limits of its kin.

One of the snowoks, a bloody clawed hunter known as Redclaw, pointed a curved talon towards a set of caves at the end of the valley. The General nodded and snapped the Admiral's reigns, urging the beast into one last sprint that ended at the move of the ice cavern. Endor slipped out of the saddle and drew his lightsaber hilt from his belt, feeling the pulse of the firkraan crystal inside as he probed it with his other-worldly senses. His thumb slid over the activation stud and brought the energy sword to life, igniting a brilliant white blade that lanced out of the emitter to a full meter and a half in length. He held the plasma blade horizontal over his head, using the sacred weapon of a Jedi Knight like a glowstick as he entered the tunnel system. Redclaw and Icefang joined him, each snowok wielding a spear forged from what Endor believed to be magical ice.

So far the Alliance science division hadn't been able to properly examine the material, mostly because it was rare even amongst the snowoks and skel. Given that the rebels already had more modern weaponry, it wasn't really a priority anyways.

Endor knelt and touched his gloved fingers to a patch of red snow, pulling the leathery tips away, sticky with what was certain to be blood. His brow narrowed and he stood, sensing impending danger the further they advanced, until finally that danger made itself known. A massive ice-beast with claws the size of shockball mitts lunged from the shadows, snarling as it charged towards them. Fearlessly the two snowoks lowered their spears and shouted battle cries, jabbing the glowing blue ends of their ice spears at the creature, which recoiled from the strange substance. Focusing his thoughts, the former Jedi extended his mental faculties to transmit his intentions into the wampa's feral mind, distracting and calming it in equal measure as he cautiously stepped forwards. Remarkably some of the fire went out of the beast's furious eyes, and its breathing grew less ragged. His attempt to calm the creature was even having an effect on the two snowoks, who lowered their spears as the threat of danger seemed to pass. Removing a hypo-syringe full of animal tranquilizer from his pack, Endor pressed the device to the wampa's furry chest and pulled the trigger, pumping the sedative into the ice beasts blood stream. Within minutes the wampa was curled in a ball, snoring louder than an ewok after one of Bright Tree Villages excessive parties.

By the time they were done, several of the creatures were ready for transport back to Echo Base.

As the escape pod impacted and skipped along the surface of Hoth, Kr'Naan's occasional screams turned to yells in sand-speak, prayers and curses, until finally it came to a stop and with it came her silence as well. The Tusken child's pecan colored skin had grown pale and she was obviously discombobulated from the rough ride from orbit. The moment Kr'Naan was unstrapped, the girl shoved her way past Endor, falling to her hands and knees in the snow and releasing a stream of vomit onto the ground. The puddle of sick steamed for only a few moments before chilling and beginning to freeze. It was in that moment that the chill began to pierce the heavy clothing Kr'Naan wore, sending shivers down into her core. Kr'Naan leaned back and sat upright and looked over the white wasteland that stretched out before her. How could anything survive in this frozen hellscape? Kr'Naan watched Red Claw took out what appeared to be elongated flat and came over to attach them to the boots the Tusken was wearing. The snowok attached the first one for the uli-ah, while leaving the second one for her to take care of herself.

Kr'Naan spat remains of the vomit from her mouth ono the ground, the disgust visible on her face. "Why have you brought me here? What scouting is there do to? There is nothing here." Kr'Naan demanded of Endor in Ewokese. The sand child was still putting on a tough front, but the cold was already getting to her. Her species, never having left their homeworld, were ill-suited for such an extreme opposite; even with the clothing provided by Endor. With the snow shoes attached, the dune dweller stood up and awkwardly walked over to where Endor was looking out at something far off in the distance. Tusken vision had developed to see far distances under the brightness of two suns reflected by the sands, so Kr'Naan black eyes had a much easier time making out outpost in the distance. "What is that place? It looks...like it does not belong."

Kr'Naan frowned as she was told of the snowok occupants of the former rebel base, turning to Red Claw and scrunching her face in a scowl at the thought. Still, if she could take this opportunity to try and bring some of the heathen bear-folk into the glory of her god, she would have made some progress. If the Tusken could convert even a small number, not only might she be able to enact an effective escape, but also potentially overthrow her current captor. The sand child had noted that he had largely ignored or rejected her attempts at explaining her god's actions and abilities, as well as spelling out the druid general's own wrongdoings, but had not forsaken him entirely. The uli-ah still held a deep hatred for the shaman general, but until Kr'Naan was certain she had a means of escape or killing him she would let him live. He seemed knowledgeable of this harsh world, and she had no intention on dying here. She could use that, for now at least. The fanatical sand fury had to rebuild for the return of her master when he regained physical form, after all.

Kr'Naan breathed on then rubbed her gloved hands together to try to warm her already frozen fingers to take hold of the handed electrobinoculars, looking over the device carefully before bringing them up to her eyes. Either the structure was extremely old, or the conditions on this planet behaved much in the same way the sand of her homeworld did in weathering and prematurely aging everything on its surface; or both. Besides the absurd opposite in temperature, the open nothingness of the landscape reminded her of Tatooine in some ways, though she would never wish to stay here longer than necessary. The dune dweller had never felt cold such as this, even with her months of acclimating to living off-world.

Squinting into the binoculars, Kr'Naan thought she could just make out a few moving white shapes, or maybe it was the snow playing tricks on her. "Then sooner we begin moving, the sooner we ge-" Kr'Naan turned around as she spoke, only to be hit square in the face with the snowball thrown by Endor. The Tusken youngling froze as if stunned, the cold causing her brain to momentarily skip a beat. Kr'Naan's eyes grew wide and her nostrils flared as the rage within the child thawed the chill's hold on her mind. A low guttural growl escaped her lips as the Tusken gritted her teeth and spoke in her native tongue at the snowball flinger.

Without even waiting for a response, if he even understood the threat, Kr'Naan would turn around and begin the awkward hike towards the Rebel base, largely in silence and without waiting for either Endor or Red Claw. Not that they would not quickly be able to catch up to her, due to her shorter legs and inexperience moving with snow shoes. This, along with her moving in a straight line directly towards the direction of the snowok dwelling, the same way her people moved through the dunes of her homeworld. But moving ahead by oneself when in such an environment could prove disastrous. Crevasses, hidden by snow, could open up beneath you. Burrowed beasts the untrained eye would not spot could be laying in wait for their next meal to get too close. Kr'Naan either did not consider any of these dangers or did not care as she stormed ahead towards the base, intent on getting out of the piercing cold. At least she was not preaching to them about the greatness of Hakusar and trying to save them from their philistine ways.