YOU GAZE out over the field of white. It is winter on the planet Hoth. It is always winter on Hoth. I mean, they have a summer. That’s when the temperature crawls up to about 10 degrees below freezing. It’s lovely.

It is not summer, though. It’s winter, and the snow stands so deep you could lose a small child in it.

You’re wearing a jacket of thick synthetic fiber, a vest on top of that, a hood, and goggles. That’s the uniform of the rebels when they’re out on patrol here on Hoth, riding their great Hothian tauntauns. (Those are large lizards that walk on their back feet. You know that, because you’re Luke Skywalker, right? But I’m just reminding you.) All your gear doesn’t insulate you from the cold, though. It is bitter and insidious. It creeps through every crack in your shell and burrows down to your bones.

Off in the distance, a meteor crashes into the snow. You squint at it. The wind whips and cracks over the ice.

“Echo Three to Echo Seven. Han, old buddy, do you read me?”

Silence. Then a crackle of static. “Loud and clear, kid. What’s up?” That’s Han Solo’s voice. You know Han Solo, of course. But I’ll just remind you: he’s a space pirate, a smuggler, a scoundrel, and somewhere between your big brother and your best friend.

“I’ve finished my circle,” you say. “I don’t pick up any life readings.”

Han’s voice breaks through again. “There isn’t enough life on this ice cube to fill a refrigerator. The sensors are placed. I’m going back.”

You shiver against the wicked wind. “Right. See you soon. There’s a meteorite that just hit nearby. I’m going to check it out. It won’t take long.”

It won’t take long. Famous last words.

For it is then, just as you sign off with Han Solo, that a wampa hits you.

It rears up out of nowhere, a giant gorilla-polar-bear-abominable-snow-man-like creature. You see its tiny eyes and enormous, grinning mouth—for just an instant.

Because then its paw makes contact with your face, and your head snaps back, and the vertebrae in your neck crackle like noisemakers, and your ears are pealing like the bells in a church.

And you are in the air, flying.

Then you hit the snow.

You lie there.

Freezing.

Maybe dying.

Your tauntaun screams.

You die.

Almost.