Madonna Litta

rawled across the rolling hills of snow, fought to reach the darker recesses of the icygorges, then finally came to rest on what must have been the only perfect whitemound on the entire world. So perfect was the snow-covered mound that it must have owed its existence tosome power other than Nature. Then, as the sky grew steadily brighter, this moundbegan to hum. Anyone observing the mound now would have been startled as thesnow dome seemed to erupt, sending its snowy outer covering skyward in a greatburst of white particles. A droning machine began pulling back its retractable sensorarms, and its awesome bulks slowly rose from its frozen white bed. The probe robot paused briefly in the windy air, then continued on its morningmission across the snow-covered plains. Something else had invaded the morning air of the ice world—a relatively small,snub-nosed craft, with dark cockpit windows and laser guns mounted on each side.The Rebel snowspeeder was heavily armored and designed for warfare near theplanet's surface. But this morning the small craft was on a reconnaissance mission,racing above the expansive white landscape and arcing over the contours of thesnowdrifts.