Flaming Water, Frozen Earth

Chapter One

-DOCUMENT START-

INFORMATION AVAILABLE FOR PUBLIC DISCLOSURE:

DOCUMENT#: FVX45897

CENTRAL GALACTIC LIBRARY, CORUSCANT

We, soldiers of the Rebel Alliance, in the name of the free beings of the galaxy, solemnly vow:

To fight and oppose the Galactic Empire and its forces, by any and all means at our disposal;

To refuse any Imperial law contrary to the rights of free beings;

To bring about the destruction of the Galactic Empire and the restoration of the Republic;

To make forever free all beings in the galaxy.

To these ends, we pledge our property, our honor, and our lives.

-Military Oath of Allegiance to the Alliance to Restore the Republic

-END OF DOCUMENT—

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Armin Artlet had visited many worlds.

Some were full of paradise and promise—vibrant with life, temperate and resource-rich, hospitable to colonists from countless scattered corners of the galaxy. In his twenty years of life, Armin had grown to know a few of these quite well. Aldaraan, Corellia, Yavin IV, and Chandrila had been lush, green worlds, nourished by sunlight's touch and the kiss of soft rain. Even Dantooine had possessed a certain wild charm, its vast verdant plains whispering of adventure and unexplored beauty.

Other planets were unquestionably hells—black and red with volcanism, shrouded by toxic or acidic fume, whipped by raging winds and gaseous storms, or crushed beneath the titanic weight of their own atmospheres. Untold billions of exoplanets drifted in the cold of space, utterly dead and silent, home to nothing but rock, vacuum, and ultraviolet rays. Millions more existed only as gas giants, emitting deadly radiation pulses, their colorful clouds concealing violent turbulent forces that would shred a space vessel into fragments to be melted and vaporized by the pressures deeper within.

Armin Artlet had visited many worlds, but this one... this world was the first of its kind that he'd ever seen.

On days like this, when the barometric pressure was high and the air too cold to hold liquid moisture, the sky was clear and cloudless, baby blue and bright with the rays of the distant sun. Reflected light blazed across the expanse of snow and ice below. Soft blue shadows, delicate as watercolours, delineated the topography of ridges, while exposed rock slopes protruded like black scars from the sea of white.

Most of the year, however, when the frozen earth was hidden in low clouds and driving snow, their snowspeeders would patrol the clear skies high above the surface. Their repulsorlifts churning the floating wisps into vortexes behind them, they would ascend. Reaching cruising height, they flew across mountain ranges that poked like islands from a roiling ocean of grey and white. Meanwhile, six thousand feet below them, the blizzard was a deathtrap, capable of freezing a well-eqipped human solid with just five minutes of exposure.

At altitude, however, Hoth was a paradise, a wonderland.

As he peered through the windscreen of his modified Incom T-47 airspeeder down at the clouds below, Armin reflected that this planet looked like it was sleeping, buried in rest beneath the blankets of blue ice.

Here, on this untamed world, the Rebel Alliance for the Restoration of the Republic had raised its battered standard to rally once more the scattered galactic forces of good and hope.

With difficulty, Armin returned to the task at hand. He tore his eyes from the beautiful panorama around him, checked his place in their two-speeder flight formation, made a minute adjustment of the control yoke, and finally glanced intently at the scanner screens.

Nothing. Just the same twin dots twenty klicks east where Green Seven and Green Eight were searching. Not a single life signature to be seen on the ground.

A female voice from behind Armin broke through the whine of the T-47's twin engines.

"Armin, you think it's time to try again?" asked Flight Officer Mina Carolina from the rear gunner's seat. He heard the rustle of her flight harness as she turned in her seat to look at him over her shoulder. "We've covered ten klicks."

"Yeah…" Armin nodded, inwardly pessimistic.

There was no reason for their search pattern to be so broad. They were surveying an area well beyond the distance a tauntaun could have traveled from Echo Base in thirty hours, and the possibility that the missing soldiers could have made it this far was remote to ludicrously unlikely. Rogue Squadron was already sweeping the more plausible inner perimeter, yet Armin doubted that even they would find anything. Anything alive, that was. Still, General Rieekan and Leia Organa had been insistent.

Double-checking to verify that his transponder was set to broadcast using the standard Alliance military comm codes, Armin leaned forward slightly over his control yoke and repeated the same message that he'd been sending for the last three hours.

"Commander Luke Skywalker, this is Green Five. Do you copy? Over."

"I repeat, Commander Luke Skywalker, this is Green Five. Do you copy? Over."

Pause. No response.

"Captain Han Solo, this is Green Five. Do you copy? Over."

"Repeat, Captain Han Solo, this is Green Five of the Scouting Corps Tactical Air Squadron. Do you copy? Over."

A long minute passed with nothing but the high-pitched roar of the engines filling Armin's ears. Below them, ridgeline after tall ridgeline passed, barren and lifeless.

"Do you think they're still alive?" Mina asked hesitantly.

Armin shrugged before remembering that she couldn't see the gesture from the back seat.

"I'm not sure," he replied. He sighed, "I don't think it's very likely." He gripped the pilot's yoke tightly with his gloves, trying not to think about the reaction back at Echo Base if the Alliance's brightest hope, the hero of Yavin IV, was brought back as a frozen corpse.

Still… It was Commander Skywalker out there, Armin reminded himself, and if anybody could survive a night blizzard on Hoth… Couldn't Jedi place themselves into a protective hibernation state? He'd read about it in a datanet book once.

In front of him, the scanner readouts flickered as Mina ran through the sequence of relevant protocols, searching for comm chatter, electromagnetic signatures, life forms, metal objects, and infrared bodies. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

They had reached the boundary of the search zone. Hauling sideways on the control yoke, Armin pushed the snowspeeder into a moderate bank, starting the 180-degree turn that would place them on the next leg of the search-and-rescue mission path. Inside the cockpit, the sun's rays sent shadows sliding across the instrument panels with the speeder's turn. Simultaneously, a kaleidoscope of bright glare flashed across the interior of the transparisteel canopy. Armin enjoyed the light show, but frowned nonetheless. He would need to mention this to the maintenance crews back at base; something seemed to be causing the windscreen's anti-glare compound to deteriorate.

They flew onwards. Every ten kilometers, Armin broadcast the same set of search messages before waiting patiently for a response. Mina continued monitoring the sensor screens.

She cleared her throat. "Two o' clock. Tauntaun herd at eight klicks. Looks like six… uh, seven individuals, adults with a couple juveniles."

Simultaneously, Armin's comm channel lit up with an excited voice. "Green Five, this is Green Six! Green Five, this is Green Six! I think we've found them, repeat, I think we've found them!"

Armin instinctively turned his head to starboard, squinting at the horizon where a sharp black dot soared over the snowy crags. A moment later, his instrument panels flickered as Hannah and Franz transmitted their sensor data to him. He looked down and furrowed his brow.

"Green Six," he replied, "re-check your biosignature readings. That's just a group of tauntauns, over."

Hannah's voice sounded embarrassed. "Damn, you're right Armin… sorry about that…"

Armin heard Mina chuckle behind him as she reassured their wingmen, "Don't worry about it, Six, you just have to process the signal through all of the sensor modes and cross-check them. Keep up the good work!"

Armin refocused his attention on the sky ahead, making a minor course correction.

All things considered, the new recruits were learning fast.

Flight school training had been drastically shortened following their retreat from Yavin IV and the subsequent increases in both pilot losses and new blood. The squadron's newest fliers now made up almost a third of its total strength, and Commander Erwin had reorganized the unit to pair each rookie aircrew with a seasoned set of wingmen. A good training measure, but a poor organizational structure for combat. For that matter, Armin, Mina, and most of his fellow pilots had less than two years of experience.

Still, this was the Alliance, after all, ragtag, destitute, and improvisational to its core. By relative standards, theirs was an elite unit.

At least recruitment had ballooned in the last few years. Armin himself had joined in the first huge wave of fresh inductees following the destruction of Aldaraan. The shocking destruction of the Death Star shortly thereafter had completely electrified the idealists of the galaxy, flooding resistance cells across the stars with enlistees, funds, and messages of support.

If what is good in sentient beings across the universe has not yet been destroyed even now, then evil shall never conquer.

The familiar quotation from one of Armin's favorite extranet novels rose to the surface of his mind, warm and hopeful.

At that precise moment, Armin's communications headset came alive.

"Green Five, this is Squadron Command. Green Five, this is Squadron Command."

He jumped in his seat in surprise as he recognized the voice of Colonel Brzenska. Her voice was trembling with uncharacteristic excitement, and Armin focused immediately on her words.

"We've found them! I repeat, the search is over. Rogue Group has located Commander Skywalker and Captain Solo, and a transport team is already en route. Green Five, your flight is ordered to discontinue search operations. Return to base immediately. Please acknowledge, over."

Armin felt his face break into a relieved smile. So they had survived! Against all possible odds, they had endured a long night at the mercy of unimaginable blizzard conditions. The good news was truly as unexpected as it was welcome.

He rushed to respond. "Acknowledged, Squadron Command. Should we move to assist with the recovery? Over."

"Negative," came Rico Brzenska's answer. "Rogue Squadron is on station to oversee the rescue. All Scouting Corps squadrons are to return to base. Good work. Squadron Command out."

Armin rapidly relayed the information and their new orders to the rest of his flight of four aircraft. From their scattered positions across eighty square kilometers of open air, the snowspeeders converged on him to reform. Hannah and Franz were the first to settle into position aft of their starboard beam. A minute or so later, Green Eight took up an identical station behind Armin's other shoulder. Armin turned briefly to look, and caught sight of Connie's grin behind his windscreen as he flashed a thumbs-up. Mikasa and Eren's speeder was still distant, but Eren was already subjecting their ears to whoops and cheers of exuberance at the news of the operation's success.

Mina had already entered a flight path for their return to Echo Base, and Armin swung the T-47 onto the new bearing. Ahead and below him, the sun caught a snow-capped peak and ignited the summit in a majestic flash of gold. He could see the faint shadow of their speeder racing across the ground, followed by two more as Connie and Hannah maneuvered their own craft to follow his.

They made the return flight to the outer perimeter in high spirits. Connie, Sasha, and Mina, soon joined by Eren after he and Mikasa rejoined the formation, rapidly abandoned all pretense of proper comm protocol, exchanging jokes and barbs, threatening to blow one another out of the sky, and loudly discussing their predictions for what the base canteen would serve for dinner later that evening. Sasha was particularly vocal despite Connie and Mina's teasing, having missed both breakfast and lunch so far today since their departure at first light five hours earlier.

Despite his rank as flight commander, Armin couldn't bring himself to enforce decorum, and found himself chucking at the antics of his wingmen. The Alliance had always had a loose, informal military culture anyway, hadn't it?

Besides, they were at the edge of the galaxy out here. Who was out here anyway to intercept their communications?

Soon, their flight of four snowspeeders neared the outermost defense sector surrounding Echo Base. Below them, the icy landscape appeared empty, devoid of weapon emplacements or stationary turrets. Invisible to the eye, a ring of advanced sensor stations lay buried in the ice, placed at intervals all around the central base in a circle that stretched one hundred kilometers in diameter. Perimeter Maria, the defense staff committee had designated it.

Armin reached out with his left hand to pull back on the throttle, slowing the T-47 from its cruising speed. Outside his cockpit, he could hear a chorus of high-frequency whines as his wingmen followed suit. Keying his transmitter to boost the IFF signal emitted by his T-47's onboard beacon, Armin opened a hailing comm channel to Echo Base.

"Control, this is Green Five, 57th Scouting Corps Tactical Air Squadron. My flight is approaching Echo Base from the southwest. Bearing: zero-two-two degrees. Range: 52.3 klicks out and closing. Requesting landing clearance and an approach vector for four T-47 combat airspeeders, over."

Behind him, Armin could hear the clicking of switches as Mina went through their pre-landing checklist, opening the engine cowlings, activating their landing lights, and running a systems assessment.

"Green Five, this is Control. Please authenticate, over."

Armin broke out into a grin. Was that who he thought it was? Only one voice could be so outwardly dispassionate, subtly edged with dry sarcasm and a hint of a mocking tone.

"Is that you Annie? This is Armin. I'm taking my flight back in from the search—could you give us a hangar assignment?" Their snowspeeder lurched as Armin pushed it into a slow descent.

"Negative, Green Five," came the response. Annie's voice was firm. "Permission to land denied. Remain at present altitude and transmit your authentication code immediately or you will be fired upon."

There were gasps of surprise from the other pilots in Armin's flight as alarms lit up in their cockpits, announcing that they were now being targeted by multiple laser and concussion missile batteries. Armin's own eyes widened in shock, and he immediately pulled the T-47 back onto a level flight path. "Annie!? What in the name of the Force are you doing!?"

There was no question about it. Annie was clearly enjoying herself as she replied, "Imperial Intelligence can create a passable artificial voice protocol from a five-second sample of voice chatter. A flawless replication is possible with a fifteen-second comm sample. Please authenticate for security purposes, over."

She had even left the antiaircraft batteries' targeting modules on. With sweat building inside his flight gloves and his insides churning with mingled embarrassment and indignation, Armin relented and spoke clearly into his transmitter.

"Sabaac-Delta-Seven-Mynock-Two-Four-Kilo. Please confirm, over."

Armin heard Mina giggle behind him, and he flushed.

The missile lock-on warning tone died, and alarm lights winked out across the instrument panel. Armin, realizing that he'd been holding his breath in apprehension, exhaled in a sigh of relief. Wondering at the ridiculousness of the situation, he tapped his fingers of his left hand against the throttle controls impatiently as he waited for Annie's response.

"Authentication confirmed. You are cleared to land at Hangar 6. Proceed northeast on your current bearing for twenty two klicks, then turn onto three-two-five for final approach, over." Her tone was businesslike, as though nothing had happened.

"Thanks, Annie… Green Five out," Armin said wearily as he signed off. He pulled back on the throttle controls, then eased the vehicle back into a shallow dive.

Mina was chuckling to herself again as she began her assigned preparations for landing. Shaking his head bemusedly, Armin asked her, "Do you know what that was all about, Mina?"

"Oh…" she replied mid-giggle, "I'll tell you later…"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her helmet shake from side to side, and he thought he heard her mutter something about boys. Wondering what that meant, Armin returned his gaze to their flight path.

Slowly, the ground rose up towards their four snowspeeders as they lost altitude. Descending to eight hundred feet, they soared over the plains that stretched in all directions around the base. Here, the winds had sculpted the snow into a smooth blanket of soft shadows and sun-bleached white. Armin could see thick clouds of snowflakes roaring just above the ground, flung by gusts across the landscape below. The terrain was flat, a prairie of snowdrifts, unbroken by hills, ice sheets, or rock.

A perfect killing field.

Perimeter Rose. As they reached the far end of the open plain, their sensors began picking up signals from the three concentric rings of fortified defenses that faced outwards to protect the main base. From the cockpit, Armin could pick out the squat Golan Arms DF.9 laser turrets sitting just behind the zigzagging lines of trenches. Behind them stood the antiquated P-Tower anti-vehicle batteries, their dish-shaped silhouettes aimed across the exposed ground.

"Armin?" Mina spoke up from the rear-facing seat. "We've reached the nav point Annie gave us."

Armin made the necessary adjustment, and the snowspeeder's nose dipped and swung to the left onto their new bearing. On their right, Hannah was late to respond to the course change. Her speeder receded into the distance for several seconds, still flying on their previous heading, before suddenly careening into a sharp left bank. Her engines' exhaust glowing as she accelerated to rejoin the formation, Hannah apologized profusely over the comm for the lapse.

They flew onwards together, now just a dozen or so kilometers out from the base itself.

Above them, the dull yellow sun had slipped behind a layer of high-altitude clouds. The snowscape assumed a shade of steel gray, a tone of twilight replacing the midday glow. Simultaneously, Armin spotted the dark specks far ahead that marked the various hangar entrances of Echo Base, their armored doors built into the range of low hills.

On a sudden whim, Armin switched his transmitter to the squadron frequency. "Green Six? This is Green Five. Could you move to take our place in formation and lead the rest of the flight in for landing?"

"Roger that, Five. Why?"

"Just going to make a flyby of the base and enjoy the scenery for a bit."

"Okay." Hannah was already maneuvering ahead of them to assume the lead position.

"See you at chow time, Armin!" Eren called out over the comm as he and Mikasa overtook Armin's snowspeeder on the left.

Armin's speeder left the formation, climbing into a gradual turn that would take them on a wide circle around Echo Base.

Armin turned slightly in his seat. "Do you mind, Mina?"

"No, not at all," she replied. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Indeed it was. Hundreds of miles away across the plain, mountain crags rose towards the clouds like a distant cityscape—a majestic backdrop to the swirling sea of snow blowing across the open plain. Bright blades of sunlight slashed downwards where the high clouds were thin, highlighting broad patches of frozen ground far away. The sun itself, hidden though it was, had surrounded itself with a fuzzy yellow halo as it sat at the apex of the sky amidst a haze of cirrus clouds.

Armin felt a smile growing on his face as they turned and soared over the great hangar entrances, over hills and valleys dotted with sensor arrays, over tauntaun patrols, over the afternoon work parties laboring on the slopes to clear snow from the previous night's blizzard. On the southern slopes, the base's KDY Planet Defender ion cannon pointed towards the sky, casting a long shadow against the snow. A short distance away hovered a newly-arrived Galofree-class transport, its landing lights burning brightly as it offloaded fresh supplies. Up ahead, four tiny dots—a combat air patrol of four snowspeeders—slowly moved across the horizon.

Here, in one of the most inhospitable habitable environments the galaxy had to offer, the Rebellion had built a home. Facing this death sentence of a planet, they prepared to defiantly confront a death sentence imposed on them by the mightiest interstellar power that had ever existed.

Yet, in spite of their threadbare odds of success, in spite of the harsh conditions in which their resistance operated, in spite of the peril associated with armed resistance against the galactic regime, and in spite of the prospect of fighting a war that might stretch for centuries, their movement was growing. Ship by ship, recruit by recruit. News arrived every few days of fresh defections from navies across the Outer Rim, of new armed revolts upon world after world. The Alliance might have been beaten back, forced to give ground, but the furious hammerblows of the Empire themselves served as a testament to their rebellion's increasing strength.

And soon, the time for the Alliance's counterattack would come.

With one last look through his transparisteel canopy at Hoth's world of eternal winter, Armin turned their T-47 towards the hangar, towards home.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That's right, guys, this is a Star Wars crossover with Shingeki no Kyojin! I'll say no more and just let you guys read on!

For the most part, I've tried to base all AoT characters on their trainee academy personalities, with modifications to account for their in-universe personal histories. Our favorite Star Wars personalities will make their appearance very soon, so stay tuned!

If you liked this chapter/story, please do check out my other story: Just What Needs to be Thrown Aside?

s/9994699/1/Just-What-Needs-To-Be-Thrown-Aside

For those of you already reading Just What Needs to be Thrown Aside? do keep in mind that it has NOT been abandoned AT ALL. I'm going to work on these two stories simultaneously, and I have plenty of ideas for both!

And as always, thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoy this new story, and please favorite and follow!