ROGUE TWO
Gary Whitta
Zev Senesca hated the cold. He hated the snow and ice, so cold it burned, hated the freezing wind that whipped at your face until you could no longer feel it. He hated this entire Maker-forsaken planet—if you could even call it a planet. Hoth was more like a giant frozen rock floating in space, as uninviting a place in the galaxy as could be imagined.
But maybe that was the point. The Empire had the Rebellion on the run after discovering their former base on Yavin 4 and forcing a hurried evacuation, and since then had made it near impossible for them to find a new home, having issued a galaxy-wide declaration that any civilized world offering safe harbor or passage to the Alliance would be subject to crippling sanctions and Imperial occupation. So in finding a location for a new base, all the rebels had left to choose from were the most remote and least suitable sanctuaries: the deserted, barren planets and moons to be found in the far reaches of space. But as desperate as the Empire knew the Rebellion was, they likely never considered they’d be so desperate as to hole up in a place like this, a planet so cold it was barely capable of sustaining any kind of life save a handful of indigenous creatures, most of which lived deep beneath the surface, closer to the planet’s still-warm core. So maybe it was smart of leadership, in a way, to hide here, one of the last places the Empire would ever think to look.
Still, that didn’t take the sting out of the day-to-day hardships of living in a place like this. Carving out the hangars and tunnels for the base itself had been hard enough, a brutally laborious job that had taken weeks and come at the cost of several lives, mostly to the cold or to cave-ins during construction. But now here they were, as comfortable as they could be under the circumstances. The techs had even managed to pipe heating throughout the base, and everyone had cheered when they first turned on the generators and they actually worked, allowing them all to strip down to fewer than six warm layers for the first time since they’d arrived.
But that had been just the beginning. Even with a functioning base to shelter inside, Hoth threw up one problem after another. The snowstorms and atmospheric interference were often so severe there were only limited windows in which Echo Base’s sensor operators could conduct scans for any signs of Imperial presence in the system—although that one at least cut both ways, the harsh weather also obscuring any rebel emanations from the surface that a passing Imperial ship might otherwise detect. They were often blind here on Hoth, but at least they were often invisible, too.
A bigger problem concerned the surface speeders the rebels had brought with them from Yavin 4. Zev and the other pilots of Rogue Squadron loved to fly them; they were fast, maneuverable, and responsive, and though they had limited range they were perfectly suited to scouting Hoth’s otherwise inhospitable landscape. But they had been designed to operate in temperate climates and their engines immediately froze up here, rendering them grounded and useless until they could be adapted to the cold—if that was even possible. Last Zev heard, the engineers reckoned that was a fifty-fifty prospect at best. That left the rebels grateful for any small break they could get, and one had come in the form of the tauntauns, the only native surface-dwelling species they had so far encountered. They were ugly and they smelled terrible and they were headstrong beasts, not easy to break, but patience had paid off and now the base had a small paddock of the animals, strong and fast, that could be saddled and ridden. Having been satisfied with the progress of the hastily improvised program, and in the hope that it would only be a stopgap measure until the speeders could be brought online, General Rieekan had given the go-ahead for regular tauntaun patrols, restricted to a limited radius around the base’s perimeter. That had given the rebels some degree of short-range reconnaissance capability, at least.
But one thing Zev had learned was that for everything Hoth gave, it took twice as much away. There had been unconfirmed reports—little more than rumors, really—about giant creatures spotted lumbering around in the frozen wastes. Roughly the shape of a man but easily twice a man’s size, those who claimed to have seen one had said. But they couldn’t be sure; the weather on Hoth often made visibility severely limited, and it was easy to mistake a rock or other natural form for something else even from just a few meters out. And after only a few months in this wasteland, some of the men and women stationed here were showing the first signs of struggling to cope with the suffocating isolation. It didn’t surprise Zev at all that some might start claiming to have seen things that weren’t really there, their minds playing tricks on them. And that’s all he believed it was, people seeing things that weren’t there. But Rieekan, still counting the lives of those already lost establishing this base, wanted to be sure. And after the general gave the order to conduct sweeps of the area and place sensors capable of picking up any life readings, it was of course Commander Skywalker who insisted on leading the first patrol. Always unwilling to let any of his Rogue Squadron pilots undertake a risk he wasn’t willing to volunteer for himself, he had taken a tauntaun and gone out into the great white waste.
Captain Solo had insisted on joining him, arguing that the job would go faster if the two of them split up and shared the sensor-placement area—but doing so always with one eye on the princess, Leia, standing nearby. Trying to impress her as usual. If Solo wanted to keep his feelings for her a secret, he had done a spectacularly poor job of it. Everyone in Echo Base knew about it. Gossip was a key weapon in the fight against boredom in a place as desolate as this, and Solo’s painfully obvious attempts to impress the princess provided plenty of fodder for it. Zev had even secretly started a squadron betting pool, and every pilot had a wager placed on what day she would finally tire of his schoolboy attempts to show off and tell him exactly where he could shove them.
Reluctantly, Leia had allowed both Solo and Skywalker to go, while imploring them to stay within the authorized search radius—and with a particular instruction to Solo that any heroics he might try to pull out there would only succeed in doing the exact opposite of impressing her. Solo had assured her that he would play things by the book, then as he often liked to do added a cocky wink to undermine everything he had just said. And so Leia had stood by the north entrance’s shield door and watched as the two men headed out until they were swallowed up by that great blanket of white.
That was this morning. And now Commander Skywalker was missing.
The news moved through Echo Base like a howling gale, chilling everyone it touched. Within minutes of Skywalker being declared overdue, every being stationed there was fearing the worst. They knew Hoth was a pitiless world that would kill you the moment you let your guard down. The commander was not the kind of man to do that, but then Hoth had other tricks up its sleeve, too, ways to kill even the most vigilant and prepared. Maybe even someone protected by the Force, as Skywalker was rumored to be, ever since he had become a legend by firing the shot that destroyed the dreaded Death Star and saved the Rebellion. That was another popular subject of base gossip—was he or wasn’t he? Zev, who was old enough to remember the tales of the Jedi from his childhood, was ambivalent about it, not willing to rule it out but deciding it was more likely that the kid was simply one hell of a pilot.
Not just one hell of a pilot but one hell of a man. After Skywalker’s incredible feat at the Battle of Yavin, Leia had rewarded him with the rank of commander and permission to form his own squadron. As the squadron’s founder he had the task of naming it, and though there were many delightful color choices available Skywalker had decided instead to dedicate his new outfit to some fellow heroes of the Rebellion. He had heard the story—as everyone had—of the heroic sacrifice made by Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, and dozens of other valiant rebels in stealing the closely guarded Imperial plans that revealed the Death Star’s critical hidden flaw and giving the Alliance a fighting chance at survival. Rogue Squadron it was, then. But Luke went one step further. The specific Rogue One designation that Erso and her crew had given themselves was to be forever retired with honor in the annals of rebel heroism. He would be Rogue Leader, but the next pilot in the roster would be given the call sign Rogue Two instead of One. That call sign fell to Zev Senesca, and he considered it a badge of pride. He would never tire of telling others how he got that designation, because it was an opportunity to regale those who might still be unfamiliar with the Erso story, a tale that summed up rebel courage and determination in the face of overwhelming odds better than any other he knew.
More than anything, though, Zev was proud to serve under the commander. Though Skywalker enjoyed revered status among the rank and file, he never traded on it or even seemed to enjoy it. Quite the opposite: He seemed to hate the idea that he was special or any better than the men and women who served under him, and he went to great pains to make that point. He wasn’t like other commanders Zev had served under. When he asked you how you were doing, he actually listened to you. He seemed genuinely interested in the lives of those around him, cared about every soul he had been entrusted with. I’m just a kid from a moisture farm on a planet no one’s ever heard of, he had told the assembled Rogue Squadron pilots when he first brought them together. So try to go easy on me when I screw up, okay? That brought a laugh, the first of many the Rogue Squadron pilots would enjoy as they grew together under the commander’s humble but firm leadership. Everybody liked him. And now he was gone.
Two things happened immediately. The first was that the rebel mechanics assigned the task of adapting the speeders to the cold started working round-the-clock shifts. Those speeders were the best chance, maybe the only chance, of finding the commander before he froze to death or succumbed to whatever other fate had befallen him out there. So now they didn’t take breaks, didn’t eat, but instead devoted themselves to laboring constantly until they found a workaround for the coolant problem that was keeping the speeders grounded. When Zev first heard that Hoth was so damn cold it was even freezing engine coolant, he thought it was funny. It didn’t seem so funny now.
The second thing that happened was that Captain Solo insisted on going back out and looking for the commander. Even though there were no ships available, even though the temperature was dropping rapidly as the day’s light waned, he had taken a tauntaun and gone out alone. He hadn’t asked Rieekan for permission, of course, because he knew he would never have gotten it. He just went. That was Solo’s way—act now, think later. The former smuggler had a mixed reputation among Rogue Squadron; pilots are by nature a cocksure bunch, so many admired his pluck and his seemingly limitless ability to speak his mind, no matter how ill-advised it might be to do so. Others—like Zev—saw him as a blowhard who had been blessed with more luck than talent and who liked to talk way too much about that piece-of-junk freighter of his. But the fact that Solo had left the safety of Echo Base and gone out into that frozen wilderness alone and without consulting his superiors told Zev something else about him—this time at least, the man’s damn-fool heroics weren’t about impressing the princess. This time he was genuinely concerned about his friend.
Zev knew how that felt. The thought of the commander somewhere out there, lost and helpless and alone as the cold bit deeper and deeper into him, felt like a ball of ice in the pit of his stomach. Worse still was the feeling of helplessness—Solo’s one-man rescue mission may have been foolhardy but at least he was doing something. All Zev and the other Rogue Squadron pilots could do was sit and wait and try not to go out of their minds with worry as the hours ticked by, waiting for any news. But the only news that had trickled in so far had been grim: The base had now lost contact with Captain Solo, and the shield doors had been closed for the night, meaning there could be no further attempts to locate him or the commander until first light tomorrow.
Zev was squadron leader in the commander’s absence, so the morale of the other pilots was now his sole responsibility. He could see how anxious they all were, how on edge, and tried to think of some way to distract them or relieve the tension. Every squadron had its own betting pool—it was often said that rebel pilots loved to play the odds because they gambled with their lives every time they strapped into a cockpit—and Zev was the guy who ran Rogue Squadron’s. Since their founding he’d run a number of popular pools, including betting on what would be the most awful thing about the location of their new base (Dak Ralter had won that one by betting on “too damn cold”), and the current one centered around Solo’s clumsy attempts to impress the princess. Now he had an idea for a new one.
He entered the pilot barracks and marched over to the board where the Solo bets were placed. Some of the other pilots jumped up in protest as he wiped all the bets off the board and started writing up a new one.
“Listen up,” said Zev. “Today we start a new pool. Everyone antes up one week’s flight pay. First pilot to find the commander wins the pot. Who’s in?”
At first there was hesitance. Then Dak, the youngster whom everyone knew idolized Skywalker more than most, stepped up to the board and wrote his name. Then Wedge Antilles, Rogue Three, stood and did the same. Then another, and another. The rest were still hesitant.
“Kinda morbid, ain’t it?” asked Hobbie, Rogue Four. “Betting on the commander’s life?”
Zev was about to respond when another voice came from the barracks entrance at the far end of the room.
“Morbid? Not at all.”
Everyone who wasn’t already standing jumped up and stood to attention immediately. It was Leia.
“As you were,” she added as she stepped inside the barracks. The pilots relaxed a little but remained standing. Leia’s very presence commanded attention and respect. She had been through hell—imprisonment, torture, the destruction of her homeworld and loss of her beloved parents—and still she kept fighting. She was the embodiment of grace under fire, and the Rogue Squadron pilots admired her as much as they did the commander. Perhaps more.
Leia leaned against one of the pilot bunks and looked at the men assembled before her. “You’re not betting on Commander Skywalker’s life,” she told them. “You’re betting on his survival. Every bet you place on that board is a vote of confidence that it’ll be a matter of when you find him, not if. It’s an expression of hope. And as a great rebel once said, rebellions are built on hope. In fact, I’d like to place a wager of my own.”
She stepped up to the board and took the marker from Zev’s hand. She then wrote the names, first and last, of every single pilot in Rogue Squadron onto the board. She didn’t have to consult a roster or ask anyone; she knew the names of every pilot from memory. When she had finished writing the list of names she signed her own at the bottom.
“I’m betting on every pilot here,” she said. “That’s what General Rieekan and I and the other Alliance leaders do every day—we bet on each and every one of you to keep us all alive, keep us fighting. And I have no doubt in my mind, none, that one of you will find Commander Skywalker and Captain Solo. I don’t like to lose, so I place this bet knowing that I’m not going to.”
And with that she gave Zev back his marker and headed to the exit, every eye in the room on her. She stopped at the door and looked back. “May the Force be with all of you,” she said. And then she was gone.
After she left, Hobbie and the other pilots who hadn’t yet placed their bets stepped up and wrote their names on the board.
The next morning Zev and the other pilots woke early to the news that the techs, having worked all through the night, had finally figured out the coolant problem and gotten the speeders running. There were a dozen of them in the air within the hour, Rogue Squadron splitting into groups of four to cover the search grid with maximum efficiency. Zev led the search across the western sector, and for most of the morning they had flown across the frozen tundra scanning for any signs of life without success. The storm that had battered Echo Base throughout the night had at last abated, and now that the sun was up visibility was the best it had been in weeks, meaning there was a greater chance of eyeballing something even if the commander wasn’t able to respond to comm messages or his lifesigns were weak. But so far all Zev had seen was endless rolling white.
Some had tried to make the best of it here on Hoth by talking about the natural grandeur of the place, the majesty of its vast ice plains and glaciers. Zev thought all that was a load of bantha fodder; he would have happily traded in all the natural grandeur in the galaxy for a toilet that didn’t freeze your ass off when you sat on it. But the one thing he wanted right now, more than anything, was a hit on his scanner, some sign that the commander was still out there, somewhere, alive. He knew the chances of anyone surviving after being caught overnight in a merciless Hoth blizzard were remote, but still Leia’s words rang in his ears. Rebellions are built on hope. Rebellions are—
A sensor ping on his cockpit display brought Zev out of his reverie. He reset the scanner to make sure it wasn’t malfunctioning in the cold, and the ping was still there. Weak, but there. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing, either, and right now he’d take anything he could get.
“Echo Base, I’ve got something,” he said into his helmet mike. “Not much, but it could be a life-form.”
He piloted his speeder across a snowcapped ridgeline, closing in on the sensor blip, which was getting gradually stronger as he approached.
“Commander Skywalker, do you copy?” Zev said. “This is Rogue Two. This is Rogue Two. Captain Solo, do you copy?”
There was still nothing but endless wastes of snow and ice visible beyond Zev’s cockpit, no visual sign of life. But the sensor blip was still there, drawing him closer.
“Commander Skywalker, do you copy? This is Rogue Two.”
His comm system crackled to life.
“Good morning! Nice of you guys to drop by!” Zev knew the voice instantly. It was Solo, and the wiseass tone could only mean one thing—the commander was alive, too. Zev’s face broke out in a broad grin.
“Echo Base, this is Rogue Two,” he said, smiling the whole time. “I’ve found them. Repeat, I’ve found them.”
He saw Solo in the distance, a tiny figure amid a vast blanket of sunlit white, waving at him. As Zev’s speeder flew overhead, he felt the relief wash over him like a wave. Hoth might have been the coldest place in the galaxy, but in that moment he felt warmer than he had since arriving here. Luke Skywalker was alive and soon he would be back in charge of the squadron. And with him leading them, they were ready to face whatever the Empire could throw at them.
In the meantime, Zev thought, all that extra flight pay he just won wouldn’t be so bad, either.