It was not unusual for an imperial trooper to stop by at the Mos Eisley cantina, but it was very unusual if he bought something. The thing is that TK-24/7 was thirsty, it was really hot outside and he happened to have a break and some money with him. It was the best Shirley Temple he ever had.

There he was, having an unscheduled lunch while the rest of the team was working. What a jerk, thought he wouldn’t be seen in that shadowy corner.

For an instant TK-24/7 stood still, thinking if he should tell this joker about the food in that cantina, the findings of the health inspector earlier that week.

He didn’t tell.

The poor guy never saw it coming. That armor, the incredible heat of the Mos Eisley alleyways and that food... According to the reports some parts of that armor couldn’t be saved.

Little known fact: the Echo base on Hoth wasn’t terribly big. When the Millennium Falcon was there, all the fighters wouldn’t fit inside, a few had to be parked outside.

 

The rugged Y-wings were the only ones that could withstand the punishing cold Hoth nights. It would have been fine if they coud have been left running on nominal power to prevent them from going cold, but that would have made them easy to detect from orbit. They had to be shut down completely.

 

Once cold, even the Y-wings were very difficult to get up and running again. You had to bolt the rear panel open, install a heater and wait until the temperatures on the inertial dampers were on an acceptable level. If not, igniting the engines could throw the inertial dampers out of whack and the ship could read its own sensors wrong thinking it was on a free fall. As an emergency measure, the ship could then spontaneously shoot up several hundred kilometers to fix the fall – which didn’t exist. This could happen with or without the pilot.

 

It was a theory suggested by one of the engineers of the Echo base, the heating procedure was merely a precaution based on this theory.

 

But, you know, sometimes theories are verified empirically by testing. That particular Y-wing testbed was recovered much later. No pilot was on board the escaped Y-wing and the guy responsible for the heating was fired... only to be rehired. The rebels were a little short on personnel on Hoth.

The explorers find interesting waters in the most surprising places. It’s not always the ocean, nor rivers or ponds, it can be something else. Whatever it is, it is worth exporing, diving in is always an option.

Scientific research is the most important thing. That and an adventure.

Little known fact: the B-wing fighter was a pig to fly. In an attempt to stabilize the bladelike frame in atmospheric flight the pilots often deployed the attack s-foils. This was against regulations but without it the awkward aerodynamics easily caused violent vibrations throughout the fighter’s frame, which in turn could lead to complete loss of control and crash. The B-wing was designed for missions in the vacuum of space, not flying in atmosphere.

 

While stabilizing atmospheric flight, the deployed s-foils were a hazard, as Clavius Pit found out trying to land his B-wing on a Hoth night test flight. There was no automatic system which would warn or retract the s-foils because they were not supposed to be deployed nowhere near landing procedures in the first place.

 

Clavius Pit was rescued from the crash site before freezing to death, the emergency beacon aboard the B-wing worked fine.

On Hoth it was not uncommon to wake up to a cold sunrise only to realise there had been a night blizzard. Yes, a night blizzard, it was a thing. Such a phenomenon could easily add ten meters of snow in a matter of hours, and it only occurred at night. It was intense and very dangerous.

TK-24/7 had no choice but to bring out a snow shovel and get to work. He was on a mission and had a schedule to follow for the day.

Lighting fire beacons is an ages old tradition on the Outer Rim planets, it used to be a means of long distance communications in the olden days for many cultures. The messaging fires obviously serve no purpose in the age of FTL communications but traditions have importance of their own. The fires, usually on mountaintops, also look quite beautiful.

 

While on a mission to Hoth TK-24/7 participated the interplanetary “Beacon Day”, as the event was called. Although being the only human on the entire planet TK-24/7 still entertained the idea of seeing another beacon lit on a faraway mountaintop. It would have been exciting. His pyre wasn't much of a pyre though, it was merely a snowball lantern, no open fire would burn well in the howling nightwinds of Hoth.

 

The lantern looked nice standing next to it. Nobody would see it from afar in this weather anyway. It was good enough for TK-24/7.

Do you remember the moment when Han Solo and Chewie blast off from the Echo station on Hoth in the movie The Empire Strikes Back? Han Solo says “Let's hope we don't have a burnout”. Well, I wanted to see how Millennium Falcon's burnout would look like. And who will clean up the mess, of course...

 

Little known fact: Jabba the Hutt was unhappy with the condition of his prized possession – Han Solo in carbonite – and ordered bounty hunters Boba Fett, Bossk and IG-88 to make some repairs. You could call it a galactic recall, if you will.

 

The big backpacks on a sandtrooper armor weren’t just life support and cooling, they were a wallet as well. TK-24/7 knew it all too well having seen his squad leader carry these huge coins in his backpack. The coins were an awkward method of paying anything discreetly but since they were the the only method of payment on Tatooine, they had to do.

The Garindan spy was not cheap but it was important, risk of exposure was smaller than the value if the information the Garindan could deliver. The most useful information was, of course, the winners for the next Mos Espa pod races.

TK-24/7 was on tour – Hoth, yet again. It was great, TK-24/7 liked the Hoth assignments very much, they were peaceful and quiet. Most of the time during a shift he was the only human being on the entire planet. In fact, there were times there was nobody else in the entire system. It couldn’t get any quieter than this.

To avoid cabin fever TK-24/7’s workdays were not as long as on most other remote posts. He had time scheduled to spend on recreational activities, a luxury unknown to most troopers on service. Although solitude and isolation weren’t a problem for TK-24/7 there were days he felt he could have welcomed some company. Sculpting from snow would have been more fun with some friends from the ranks. And snowball fights, it needed a minimum of two to play.

Did you ever wonder what happened to the escape pod on Tatooine? The one with the droids in it? Well, wonder no more, it’s not there anymore, the jawas got it.

 

The gigantic jawa sandcrawlers were slow. It was not a problem at all, usually there was no rush anywhere, but if there was a good reason to believe something worthwhile was in the desert, a sand skiff was used.

 

This time the jawas knew what they were after, C-3PO told them exactly what to look for, and where. The jawas got all the thrusters off the escape pod, it was a good catch. The moisture farmers use them to blow sand off their property. True story.

 

Little known fact: environmental protection programs were not very high on priority lists on Tatooine, but the jawas inadvertently did a great job keeping the deserts clean of wreckage. I think it was about time this got some exposure.