Freedom's Winter

As the episode opens, Commander "Boss" Narra, the leader of Renegade Flight, is giving orders to his pilots as they escort their convoy near the planet Derra IV. He tells them to be on alert for Imperial ships. Sure enough, a huge number of TIE fighters approach from all directions and begin an all-out attack. The fighters and transports scramble, but none are able to make the Jump to Lightspeed in time. The entire fleet, including the fighters, is destroyed.

Elsewhere, a lieutenant brings news of the battle to the imperial Captain Needa. Far from being pleased, Needa is frustrated that his probe droids have brought back no useful activity; the victory at Derra IV makes him worry that the war will be over before he sees any success. Before launching the next round of droids, Needa tells the lieutenant that Darth Vader has sent new instructions that must be added to their programming: priority is to be given to finding Luke Skywalker and the Millennium Falcon.

On the planet Hoth, Rebel officers meet to discuss the progress of establishing Echo Base, including Lieutenant Commander Skywalker's work to place sensors to create a regional warning network. Cold-weather supplies are low. General Rieekan says that the situation will improve once the convoy arrives. As the meeting breaks up, Luke approaches the Princess Leia to talk, but no sooner does he get her attention than Han Solo and Chewbacca interrupt to complain about the slow pace of repairs to the Millennium Falcon. This annoys Leia and Luke, who question Han's commitment to the Rebel cause.

Rieekan returns and tells Luke and Leia that he has just received a message detailing the disaster at Derra IV. This will deprive the base of urgently-needed supplies and reinforcements. Rieekan immediately promotes Luke to the rank of Commander; his Rogue Flight will now have to defend the base almost single-handedly. Luke tries to ask for some spare techs for the Falcon on Han's behalf, but Rieekan does not promise anything. As Luke mourns Boss, Leia quietly tells him, "We need you more than ever now."

Luke and Han ride out on tauntauns to place more warning sensors. Luke's mount is nervous. Han mentions seeing a carcass that looked like a killing by a wampa ice creature. As Han heads back to the base, Luke lingers to investigate a meteor strike. He is attacked as the scene ends.

Back at Echo Base, Leia asks See-Threepio if Luke and Han have returned; he and Artoo-Detoo tell her no. They next encounter the base's coordinator droid, who informs them that they have been reassigned - Threepio to the communications center and Artoo to digging duty in the ice caverns. Threepio indignantly tells the coordinator that both he and Artoo are personal aides to Commander Skywalker and Princess Leia, at which point he rescinds the reassignment. Threepio goes on to complain that temperature in Leia's room had been freezing until they turned up the heating system - at which point the coordinator warns them that this could cause the walls to melt. Threepio and Artoo hurry away to correct their mistake.

Luke regains consciousness hanging by his feet in the wampa's cave. His comlink no longer works. Luke uses the Force to call his lightsaber to him, and with it free himself and kill the wampa. Stranded with no survival gear and no tauntaun, he tries to walk back to base.

Han arrives at Echo Base. He checks on Chewbacca, who is slowly working - alone - on repairs to the Falcon. Back outside, an exhausted and dazed Luke sees the spirit of Ben Kenobi. Luke at first doubts what he is seeing, but Ben tells him to go to Dagobah to seek Jedi Master Yoda. The figure then vanishes as night begins to fall.

"Freedom's Winter", like the opening episode "A Wind to Shake the Stars" in the first Star Wars radio drama, opens with several scenes not in the film. The Battle of Derra IV is completely original, ending with the destruction of a Rebel supply convoy and of Renegade Flight. The battle was later illustrated (in flashbacks) in the 1997 comic X-Wing Rogue Squadron 25.

In another added scene, Captain Needa's Star Destroyer Avenger is shown to be the ship that launched the Imperial probe droid to the Hoth system. Later Legends sources would inconsistently identify both the Avenger and another Star Destroyer, the Stalker, as the ship launching the droid.

The first scenes in Echo Base are also original with Daley's script. Leia and Rieekan discuss the base's ongoing construction and their urgent need for more supplies—creating dramatic irony since the audience already knows that the convoy was destroyed. Han argues with Rieekan over help repairing the Falcon, showing that he has not completely shed his selfish side. The episode also depicts Leia and Rieekan getting news of the battle, Luke's promotion to commander, and See-Threepio's confrontation with a coordinator droid. The coordinator droid was identified in 1996 as K-3PO. His conversation with Threepio adds some detail to how the droids inadvertently caused the walls of the princess's quarters to melt, an event alluded to in the film. After this, the episode catches up to the events of the film's opening scenes.

Luke at first is shocked to see Ben Kenobi and doubts that the apparition can really be him; he even says, "It can't be... I saw you die," despite having heard the dead Jedi's voice in A New Hope, both the film and the radio adaptation. Kenobi's spirit also made contact with Luke during the time before these events in multiple other Legends materials.

• The Empire Strikes Back: The National Public Radio Dramatization