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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2661228" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 13: We're LateAfter only a few minutes, Gant had led Esah back north, across the clearing and then east a short ways. The ground did its usual dipping and rising through the forest, making it an interesting trek when one couldn’t actually set eyes on the ground below, but soon they came to a stop and Gant carefully pointed through the thick trees to a small patch of green ahead of them.    “There,” he whispered as quietly as possible, “Just under the lower branches.”    Esah leaned in to peer closer. She could feel the whatever-they-were in the Force without even trying, but actually laying eyes on them was much more difficult. But, after a few seconds of careful watching, she caught a soft movement right where Gant had pointed. In an equally quiet voice, she asked, “What are they?”    “Some kind of hawk-bat,” Gant answered, kneeling down to get a half-step closer.    “Hawk-bat?!” Esah tried not to yell, “You said pack! Pack implies canine! Not hawk-bats!”    Gant stopped his slow movement to ‘look’ over his shoulder at her and mumble, “I’m not an expert on animals.”    “Obviously,” Esah rolled her eyes and knelt down, too, “So what do we want to do?”    They both decided moving any closer was probably not a good idea, as it didn’t take much training in the Force to sense the alertness of the hawk-bats. So, instead, they sat there on the ground watching and thinking. There didn’t seem to be very many ways to get a group of hawk-bats all the way across that clearing and to the camp. But, thankfully, they meant the options were few and it was going to be easy to narrow them down to one.    Or at least, that was the hope.    Esah shifted slightly and tried to tip her head down so that the branch above her would stop brushing against her and whispered, “I am not sure we have the skill enough to do this.”    To her surprise, Gant actually nodded, but added quickly, “Probably not, but we don’t have to trick them the entire distance now, do we?”    As much as they could, Esah’s eyes widened, “You don’t really mean what I think you mean, do you?”    The grin that appeared on the Miraluka’s face was more worrying than anything she’d ever seen on him. It faded after a moment into a more simple, and normal, smile, “We run in and get them after us, get close enough to the camp and then disappear.”    Esah’s large, orange eyes blinked a few times as she put together his ‘plan’, if it could be called that, in her mind. She then sighed and shook her head, “You’re as bad as Cowan when you try to be, you know that?”    The only response was a quiet laugh and a nod.    Shaking her head, the Mon Calamari went on, “Hawk-bats, Gant...hawk-bats. You want us to run through there, and then all the way back to that camp with who knows how many hawk-bats after us?!”    “Seven.”    “Huh?”    “Seven hawk-bats,” Gant clarified helpfully.    Silence. Every few seconds, Esah’s mouth opened and closed...not for breath, but simply out of shock at what the Miraluka was sitting there and telling her. Finally, though, she found the correct words, “Seven?! Are you insane?! One is bad enough!”    That grin quickly returned to Gant’s face, “Now, now. Haven’t you learned anything from Master Skywalker? Trust in the Force, my friend!”    “Oh, I trust the Force!” she growled under her breath quickly, noticing that he was starting to move towards the hawk-bats again, “Its you that has me worried!”    But he was gone then, ducking under another branch and carefully creeping towards the nearby creatures. It was one of those times where Esah wondered if Miraluka really were just eye-less humans. Gant sure acted like one a good amount of the time. He was nearly as reckless as Cira or Cowan if he wanted to be. Esah, of course, ignored the fact that she could be, too, since that would have completely destroyed her theory. And besides, it was too late for complaining. He was already moving and she decided the only thing left to do was hope this wasn’t as crazy as it sounded and get ready to run.    Gant got about five meters from the hawk-bats before everything went horribly wrong. At first, the two apprentices could only identify a rush of movement. But a second later they quickly realized that the hawk-bat’s had suddenly jumped up from their perches and scattered. They did not, however, fly straight for Gant as would have been expected as normal behavior from the creatures. Instead, both Gant and Esah felt a sudden surge of panic from the creatures and then they were up and gone, off to the north with lightning speed.    There was just enough time for Gant to spin around and look confused before a deafening explosion rocked the ground, sending the two of them to the ground on their faces. The second the sound started to fade, there was another...and another...and another. They both managed to get up to their feet again, but anything yelled from one to the other was drowned out by the noise of the explosions and...and...    Their heads shot up to look (and sense) the source of the other sounds. Sublight drives could be heard screaming above, coupled with the very distinct screech of TIE Fighters. Vaguely, the shapes of a multitude of ships could be seen through the jungle canopy, but it was impossible to distinguish any actual design with such a bad view.    Gant scrambled across the ground to Esah, screaming at the top of his lungs, “I think we waited a little too long!”    Esah nodded, instinctively turning back towards the clearing they had come from. Very faintly, small lines of bright red could be seen. Glancing back to the Miraluka, she yelled, “I think you’re right!”</blockquote>

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