Obi-Wan looked at the horizon. A silvery clump of snow seemed to be falling fast against the white sky. But he wasn't seeing snowflakes. It was a cruiser.

"Surveillance," he said crisply to Anakin. "Drop down."

It was the only thing to do. There was no cover. They dropped to the ground, their faces in the snow. From above, their white survival gear would blend with the landscape. They heard the whirr of the engines above and stayed perfectly still. The ship was going slowly, tacking over the area in a sweep. Obi-Wan slowed down his breathing and his life processes, a Jedi technique. He knew Anakin would do the same. It would make it difficult for a life-form sensor to pick up their traces. The cold would help them, too.

Obi-Wan didn't think of the cold, or the imminent danger. He let his mind slow as his body processes had. He made himself a blank, just another piece of white against a white background.

The whirr of the engines softened and waned. They waited until they could hear nothing, concentrating so hard that Obi-Wan heard the tiny plink plink of the icy snowflakes hitting the ground beside him.

Anakin rolled over. Ice had caked in his hair. He blinked the snow off his eyelashes. "I feel like a frozen jujasickle."

"You look like one, too. But it's better than being shot at."

"If you say so." Anakin stood and dusted the snow off his legs.

"They'll be back. We'd better hurry." Obi-Wan consulted the map on his datapad. "We're close. We have to be careful now. We don't want to lead the Vanqors to the outpost."

"Let's hope they don't find the — "

A loud explosion suddenly sounded. Obi-Wan and Anakin turned back the way they had come. Obi-Wan put the electrobinoculars to his eyes. He saw a thin plume of smoke.