Not wasting a moment, Luke removed a small object from his utility belt and

adjusted its miniature controls. The device was sensitive enough to zero in on even

the most minute life readings by detecting body temperature and internal life systems.

But as Luke began to scan the readings, he realized there was no need—or time—to

continue.

A shadow crossed over him, towering above by a good meter and a half. Luke

spun around and suddenly it seemed as if the terrain itself had come to life. A great

white-furred bulk, perfectly camouflaged against the sprawling mounds of snow,

rushed savagely at him.

"Son of a jumpin'…"

Luke's hand blaster never cleared its holster. The huge claw of the Wampa Ice

Creature struck him hard and flat against his face, knocking him off the Tauntaun and

into the freezing snow.

Unconsciousness came swiftly to Luke, so swiftly that he never even heard the

pitiful screams of the Tauntaun nor the abrupt silence following the sound of a

snapping neck. And he never felt his own ankle savagely gripped by his giant, hairy

attacker, or felt his body dragged like a lifeless doll across the snow-covered plain.

Black smoke was still rising from the depression in the hillside where the

air-borne thing had fallen. The smoky clouds had thinned considerably since the

object had crashed to the ground and formed a smoldering crater, the dark fumes

being dispersed over the plains by the icy Hoth winds.

Something stirred within the crater.

First there was only a sound, a droning mechanical sound swelling in intensity as

if to compete with the howling wind. Then the thing moved—something that glinted

in the bright afternoon light as it slowly began to ride from the crater.

The object appeared to be some form of alien organic life, its head a multiorbed,

skull-like horror, its dark-lensed blister eyes training their cold gaze across the even

colder reaches of wilderness. But as the thing rose higher from the crater, its form

showed it clearly to be a machine of some sort, a circular head, and equipped with

cameras, sensors, and metal appendages, some of which terminated in crablike

grasping pincers.

The machine hovered over the smoking crater and extended its appendages in

various directions. Then a signal was set off within its internal mechanical systems,

and the machine began to float across the icy plain.

The dark probe droid soon vanished over the distant horizon.

Another rider, bundled in winter clothing and mounted on a spotted gray

Tauntaun, raced across the slopes of Hoth toward the Rebel base of operations.

The man's eyes, like points of cold metal, glanced without interest at the domes

of dull gray, the myriad gun turrets and the colossal power generators that were the

only indications of civilized life on this world. Han Solo gradually slowed his

snow-lizard, guiding the reins so the creature trotted through the entrance of the

enormous ice cave.

Han welcomed the relative warmth of the vast complex of caverns, warmed by

Rebel heating units that obtained their power from the huge generators outside. This

subterranean base was both a natural ice cave and a maze of angular tunnels blasted

from a solid mountain of ice by Rebel lasers. The Corellian had been in more

desolate hell-holes in the galaxy, but for the moment he couldn't remember the exact

location of any one of them.

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