Nebulous - Han Solo [2]

Chapter 6 : Freezing

It was freezing cold. There really was no other way to describe it. Other than white. Snowy. Icy. Blustery. And then back to cold again. Tasha's list of adjectives to describe Hoth was short, but that was because, really, there wasn't anything there for miles except ice and snow.

"Where 'bouts are we?" Tasha asked, peering out from under the fluffy hood of the snow suit, her green eyes standing out against her pale skin, almost as white as the snow surrounding her. Han looked down at the tracker on his wrist, trying to work out where the hell the two of them were.

"We should be nearly there . . ." he said. The Wookiee towering over the two of them let out a frustrated howl.

"Really?" Tasha snapped up at him, "you're cold?" the Wookiee growls back at her, and Tasha smirks almost playfully at him, although it fades back into a line when she notices Han looking at her. A strange buzzing sounded to her right, her eyes suddenly having a slight twinge of uncertainty to them. Han opened his mouth to speak, but barely a sound came out before Tasha shushed him.

"What is that?" she asked quietly, scouring the ice around her for anything out of place. A large, black machine sped across the ice, spitting out a noise similar to the one she heard in the command centre. She grabbed Han's jacket, pulling him around a snow covered rock, pulling her blaster out of its holster at her side. Han looked at her in bewilderment and she pointed out the prominent black . . . thing, making its way over to them. It had a large, oval-shaped 'head' and four long, spindle-like 'legs' the hung down from the head, making it look like a jellyfish. It hung about a foot in the air, propelled off the ground as it skidded through the inhospitable landscape, making that strangely menacing beeping noise.

Whilst Han and Tasha were quite well concealed by the snow that landed on them and the size of the boulder they were hiding behind, but Chewie on the other hand . . . well, let's just say it's not easy to hide a gargantuan brown Wookiee in the middle of a snow storm.

"We need to take it out," said Tasha, her eyes still trained on it. "Chewie can get 'round the other side?" the Wookiee howled an affirmative, holding his crossbow ready as he snuck around the back of the droid.

"So what's your plan this time, sweetheart?" Han asked in a whisper. Tasha scoffed slightly at him.

"Honestly?" she asked, and he nodded. She stood up from her crouch behind the rock, "no idea," she finished. She jogged around closer to the droid, her knuckles whitening as she gripped hard onto her blaster. Han followed her close behind.

Chewie let out a growl, and the droid's 'eye' turned around to face. It took a couple of shots at him, the Wookiee ducking behind a rock. Tasha locked onto her target, letting out a couple of shots at the black thing, trying to keep its attention off of Chewie. It then decided it was bored with the Wookiee and started shooting at the smuggler and the princess.

"Now it's firing at us!" Han yelled over the noise of the blasts.

"Yeah, didn't think about that." Tasha said, bolts from the droid sparking as they hit the rock above her head. Then, the princess heard a bolt hit something other than her shield, accompanied by a Wookiee howl. Chancing it, she stuck her head up, firing again at the droid, hitting it twice before the thing exploded into a fireball of sparks and mechanics.

"I'm afraid there's not much left," Han said into his comm, as Tasha carefully made her way around to what was once the droid.

"What was it?" Leia's voice came back to him.

"A droid of some kind." He replied, "Tasha didn't hit it that hard. It must've had a self destruct."

"I think it was an imperial probe," added Tasha, her expert eyes scanning the wreckage.

"It's a good bet the empire knows we're here," said Han, watching Tasha carefully; the troubled look in her emerald eyes, her rigid limbs, her knuckles, white with tension.

The great Wookiee moved up next to the raven princess, dwarfing her. He grumbled something to her, and the girl smiled slightly.

"Yeah Chewie," she said, reaching her hand up into his brown mane near his head, "you did good." She turned away from the Wookiee, walking back to Han. "We need to get going," she said sternly. Chewie and Han didn't move, just stared after her as she walked back the way they came.

"Now, Solo!"