Artoo-Detoo stood just outside the entrance to the secret Rebel ice hangar, dusted with a layer of snow that had settled over his plug-shaped body. His inner timing mechanisms knew he had waited here a long time and his optical sensor told him that the sky was dark.
But the R2 unit was concerned only with his built-in probe-sensors that were still sending signals across the ice fields. His long and earnest sensor-search for the missing Luke Skywalker and Han Solo had not turned up a thing.
The stout droid began beeping nervously when Threepio approached him, plodding stiffly through the snow.
"Artoo," the gold-colored robot inclined the upper half of his form at the hip joints, "there’s nothing more you can do. You must come inside." Threepio straightened to his full height again, simulating a human shiver as the night winds howled past his gleaming hull. "Artoo, my joints are freezing up. Will you hurry…please?…" But before he could finish his own sentence, Threepio was hurrying back toward the hangar entrance.
Hoth’s sky was then entirely black with night, and Princess Leia Organa stood inside the Rebel base entrance, maintaining a worried vigil. She shivered in the night wind as she tried to see into the Hoth darkness. Waiting near a deeply concerned Major Derlin, her mind was somewhere out on the ice fields.
The giant Wookiee sat nearby, his maned head lifting quickly from his hairy hands as the two droids Threepio and Artoo reentered the hangar.
Threepio was humanly distraught. "Artoo has not been able to pick up any signals," he reported, fretting, "although he feels his range is probably too limited to cause us to give up hope." Still, very little confidence could be detected in Threepio’s artificial voice.
Leia gave the taller droid a nod of acknowledgment, but did not speak. Her thoughts were occupied with the pair of missing heroes. Most disturbing to her was that she found her mind focused on one of the two: a dark-haired Corellian whose words were not always to be taken literally.
