The temperature on the surface of Hoth had dropped. But despite the frigid air,
the Imperial Probe Droid continued its
leisurely drift above the snow-swept fields and
hills, its
extended sensors still reaching in all directions for life signs.
The robot's heat sensors suddenly reacted. It had found a heat source in the
vicinity, and warmth was a good indication of life. The head swiveled on its axis,
the
sensitive eyelike blisters noting the direction from which the heat source
originated. Automatically the probe robot adjusted its speed and began to move at
maximumvelocity over the icy fields.
The insectlike machine slowed only when it neared a mound of snow bigger than
the probe droid itself. The robot's scanners made note of the mound's size-nearly
one-point-eight meters in height and an enormous six meters long. But the mound's
size was of only secondary importance. What was truly astounding, if a surveillance
machine could ever be astounded, was the amount of heat radiating from beneath the
mound. The creature under that snowy hill must surely be well protected against the
cold.
A thin blue-white beam of light shot from one of the probe robot's appendages,
its
intense heat boring into the white mound and scattering gleaming snow flecks in
all directions.
The mound began to shiver, then to quake. Whatever existed beneath it was
deeply irritated by the robot's probing laser beam. Snow began to fall away from the
mound in sizable clumps when, at one end, two eyes showed through the mass of
white.
Huge yellow eyes peered like twin points of fire at the mechanical creature that
continued to blast away with its
painful beams. The eyes burned with primeval
hatred for the thing that had interrupted its slumber.
The mound shook again, with a roar that nearly destroyed the probe droid's
auditory sensors. It zoomed back several meters, widening the space between it and
the creature. The droid had never before encountered a Wampa Ice Creature; its
computers advised that the beast be dealt with expeditiously.
The droid made an
internaladjustment to
regulate the potency of its laser beam.
Less than a moment later the beam was at
maximumintensity. The machine aimed
the laser at the creature, enveloping it in a great
flaming and smoking cloud.
Seconds later the few remaining particles of the Wampa were swept away by the icy
winds.
The smoke disappeared, leaving behind no physical evidence-save for a large
depression in the snow-that an Ice Creature had ever been there.
But its existence had been properly recorded in the memory of the probe droid,
which was already continued on its programmed mission.
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