This is a short story that I wrote for my website:
It was a long campaign for us as soldiers and as men. We had finally reached Hoth the planet where we believed the Rebel Alliance to be massing their troops. Our AT-ATs walked slowly toward the base in the mountains, the shield generator coming into view as we marched behind them. I looked to my left and right at the men I had served with since the formation of the 501st back in the Clone Wars. I knew they would fight hard and die for their Empire. It was the replacements I was worried about and I prayed for them and hoped they would die as valiantly as their 501st brothers.
The first shot was fired when we reached a 1/4 klick mark from the shield generator. The trooper immediately to my right went down.
"Sniper!" I shouted to my men. "Break ranks!"
My men split up into squads and ran to take cover and capture objectives. Their Snowspeeders flew overhead trying to take down our AT-AT walkers. Explosions peppered the battlefield. Red and green blaster fire flew through the air. A Snowspeeder managed to take down an AT-AT. As I ran to the fallen hunk of metal that had been our walker to try and recover any men or equipment, a rocket hit the "neck" area and the whole thing exploded. I now ran in the opposite direction. Into a bunker where several heavy Rebel troopers had taken cover. I ran in, my E-11 blaster firing before I had even lined up the sights. The three Rebels dropped where they crouched. Now it was my turn to take cover.
I called to one of my men "Marcus, you and the others set up here."
"Yes Sir"
I crawled out and up onto a hill where I could see the ongoing battle. My men were being pushed back, slaughtered. Our intelligence must have been off they had more troops than we had originally estimated. More rockets hit the AT-AT. It went down hard. As I began to lose hope I saw it a swish of black.
Darth Vader had arrived on the battlefield. My men fought with renewed vigor from that moment on. Even now I'm still not sure how we managed to push them all the way back to their mountain base and execute their commander. but make no mistake the deciding moment of that battle was the arrival of a hero.
Link To Story On My Website:
http://www.lagawaygaming.com/2011/02/arrival-of-hero.html)