Project Boussh: The Fog of War by Policrat' Lieutenant Chase moaned, coughed, blinked, and managed to open his eyes. He felt oddly light-headed, but all he could see was a dark grey fog, and his shoulder felt like liquid lead. But at least that meant he wasn't dead. Hopefully. It took him a few moments to realise that he was lying on his AT-ST's cockpit deck, and that the dark mist was thick smoke swirling around the cabin, seeping through his helmet filters, scratching his skin, burning his throat and making him weep with pain. "What happened?" he croaked. "Yagger? What the kriff is all this smoke?" "I'm here, sir," the Sergeant answered. "Just setting the second Ewok on fire." Chase heard himself laugh. "Please explain yourself, Sergeant Yagger," he asked. "Why are you setting Ewoks on fire in the cabin of my walker?" "I'm trying to make it look as if we're conked, sir," Yagger told him, perhaps with a hint of insubordinate amusement in his voice. But perhaps not. Chase found he couldn't really tell. "Little buggers dropped through the hatch," the Sergeant went on. "Caught your shoulder with their first shot, got the comm box with the second, but that was all I let them get off." He paused, perhaps in satisfaction. "The attack was falling apart like a shagged-out droid, and you being injured, sir, I thought it best to improvise a little camouflage. We're caught between Jedi and X-wings and a bloody division's worth of Ewoks all of them killing things. Sir." "Thank you, Sergeant," the Lieutenant sighed. "You did the right thing. And the smell of burning Ewok seems to disguise the charred stench from my shoulder rather well." "Yes, sir," Yagger agreed. "I slapped on a patch and gave you some stim for the pain, but it isn't pretty, and it smells like a tonto's guts." "And the battle?" Chase asked absently. "Have we lost yet?" "Not yet, sir," Yagger smiled. "They were better-defended than we expected, but we've still got TIE Defenders and AT-STs and a bloody great Star Destroyer up in orbit. Last thing I heard before the comm box sparked was the big blue bastard ordering the Addy back to holding station one to give the Rebs great guns..." Chase chuckled dryly, and passed out again. *** "We are at holding station one, Admiral," Captain Nriz reported, breaking the hushed near-silence on the _Admonitor_'s bridge. "Thank you, Captain," Thrawn answered, his voice quiet and very cold. "Open fire, aura pattern..." *** It was starting to snow, and Wedge Antilles was hauling on his harness, running for the makeshift flight strip and his waiting fighter, when fire exploded across the sky. The night lit up like the heart of a star, blinding him. There was fire against his face, a sound like wild thunder in his ears, and a sudden wind lifting him effortlessly from the ground, throwing him twenty yards through the air. He landed hard on the frozen ground, and lay there for a few moments, stunned, disoriented, before hauling himself to his feet. Rubbing his eyes, he took two steps towards where his fighter should have been, and swore in shock. It wasn't there. Instead, there was a smoking hole in the ground and a black smear of melted metal. "That was too close," he whispered, and started running again. Five hundred yards away, the _Red Home_ was setting down. Myn Donos' fighter was still aboard the freighter, and if he could get aboard, Wedge could get into the air where he belonged. But he knew that, with the Star Destroyer bombarding the cabin from orbit, he would be doing little more than cover Terra Group's retreat. *** Sci swooped low across the battle, his shuttle howling through the sheeting snow to strafe the Imperial positions in the treeline. He chuckled as he caught sight of a broken platoon of stormtroopers, fleeing out of the woods with a cheering phalanx of Ewoks in pursuit. The Imperial troops seemed to be outnumbered ten to one, running like hunted animals in fear and disarray, all thought of orderly retreat abandonned. But he'd seen the first turbolaser bolts light up the night, and knew that the odds had changed. Most of the fire had been around the cabin and along the road which served as a makeshift airstrip, but here and there, the New Hampshire forest was on fire. Even as he watched, another turbolaser blast cut a swathe through the sky, clipping the treeline before tearing into the attacking Ewoks. Most of the furballs were incinerated in an instant holocaust, and behind them, flames began to race through the black trees. A stormtrooper with an officer's black shoulder-strap seemed to shout something, and his men rallied, turning on the surviving Ewoks with murderous vengance, grey silhouettes in the smoke of the spreading forest fire. "Terra Lead," a voice crackled in Sci's ear, "this is Terra Six. Things are getting a little warm down here. Can you pick us up?" "Copy, Terra Six," he replied, his voice cool and calm "Where are you?" "Edge of the woods, far side of the cabin from the road," Josh told him. "Right on the wrong side of the battle from the _Red Home_." "Hang tight," Sci told them. "I'm coming to get you." As he swung the shuttle around in a tight arc, he saw the dark clouds part ahead of him, and two Imperial drop-barges, escorted by TIEs, punched their way into the storm. He didn't know whether they were bringing more troops, or picking up the survivors on the ground, but, he realised grimly, it hardly mattered. *** Wedge was half way to the _Red Home_ when he heard another turbolaser blast tear through the air behind him, and the rising scream of ion engines somewhere over to his left. They came in low, cutting a curve through the sleet, four TIE Defenders with the bloodstripes of the 181st on their wings. Too late, a lone X-wing slid in on their tails, but the Imperial pilots simply toggled their shields to double aft, and held their course. Wedge saw a group of Ewoks dragging an injured man across the cratered ground towards the freighter's landing zone, and he groaned in despair as the fighters jinked towards them. The Defenders opened fire, raking the ground and punching up gouts of snow as they drove towards them. Some of the Ewoks stood their ground, vainly and defiantly trying to bring down the fighters with their captured carbines. Wedge couldn't help but wince as they were cut down, but he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the survivors drag the injured man clear, fire biting at their heels. Belatedly, the freighter's guns opened fire, swatting one fighter away, sending it corkscrewing over Wedge's head to slam into the ground somewhere behind him. The big ship's shields flared for a second as the Imperials made one last effort to breach its defenses, but then two more X-wings joined the fight and the remaining TIEs veered off, pursued by a hail of laser fire and a few torpedoes. For an instant, as the _Red Home_ manoeuvred for touchdown, Wedge smiled. And then a bolt of dark fire fell from the sky, striking the freighter towards the stern, punching through the weakened shields to smash into the engine block. Another followed, and another. Wedge stood in shock as the ship lurched again. Smoke and fire were pouring from great gashes in the hull and the pitch of the engine rose to a how as the pilot fought a hopeless battle to keep the freighter flying. It almost felt like a mercy when the running lights flickered and died, the tortured noise of the engines fell silent and the ship dropped the last ten feet to the ground, landing with a tremendous crash and a scream of buckling metal, stern-first, before pitching forwards thunderously, kicking up snow and mud to come to rest with it bows buried in the earth. Wedge saw stormtroopers in slate-grey armour at the edge of the woods, fanning out as they moved towards the crippled freighter. Drawing his sidearm, he began running again.