Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Pipka]

The war with Zakuul was another notch in Pipka's very small belt with very few notches. It was a grand adventure, even if he stayed aboard the Turtle for most of it, running supplies and occasionally providing support for the Eternal Alliance. He served at his captain's discretion and with Sysadmin's approval, sending back a wealth of information from his observations of and activities in the war.

He never could have imagined how much of the universe he would see back when he was a wee little pup watching those abominable, unending waves. But with all those new and exciting sights he saw, all the good deeds he accomplished, and all the friends he made, there were the appalling realities of war, there were the failures that couldn't be redeemed, and worst of all, there were the losses.

War took its toll. In an ideal galaxy, Pipka would have stayed back on Hoth, or gone back to Chad, or anywhere else but where the war reached, but this was not an ideal galaxy and he had his obligations. Even without those obligations, Pipka wouldn't have changed his actions. The good and the bad were two sides of the same chance cube and it was a chance cube he intended to keep rolling. The only way was forward.

The war eventually came to an end, an unforeseen truce of sorts presented by the recently victorious Vaylin. Pipka knew there was some good in her, someone who liked goats couldn't be all bad.

Once things had settled down a bit, Pipka returned to Hoth. His first order of business was to check in with Gibzy Wizy Tik and his family and of course the tribe. They had fared well, maintaining Echo Base and making a home of it. Hoth Chocolate had spread across the planet to the other settlements and allowed Gibzy and the tribe to live a comfortable life. Pipka was pleased with his decision to leave the goats in Gibzy's very capable hands. There were many new kids in the tribe and their future looked promising. That settled, Pipka rode off in the Rabbit to visit with his pen pal of the last five years. Sysadmin was... much the same. They still craved more data, always the data. Every battlefield report, every first hand recounting, every holovid, Pipka sent back. Even now it was still not enough, would it ever be enough? One could only hope not. While Pipka greatly appreciated the upgrades he had received, he didn't relish the unwavering purpose for which the data was collected. Although the unrequested data he sent, more stories of fantasy and romance, didn't seem to have much impact on Sysadmin's personality, Pipka would keep trying. Maybe one day, they would set aside their purpose, or decide it was futile or an error, or they would lose interest. You didn't give up on family.

His last act on Hoth was to build an awe-inspiring monument to what his friends had achieved here, the beginnings of the Eternal Alliance. Here, he built memorials to those lost, some to the friends and allies he had made along the way and some to the enemies he had overcome. It didn't seem enough. The monument and the memorials would only last so long, destined to be lost to time. There was another way, a format that would both endure the trials of time and that would spread the stories of these lives to a greater audience. Inspired by how widespread Jerri's works disseminated, Pipka began writing. He realized it was not his destiny to inspire romance and passion as his idol did, but to spread their stories; to neither inspire nor discourage, not to glorify or to demonize, just to tell their story.