Star Wars - Kenobi

space, clutching for Snit’s rearmost girth strap. It was the only part of the rigging that looked at all secure—and it was. The second she had a firm grasp on it, she heaved herself from Vilas to Snit.
    This Snit did notice—and he wasn’t the least bit happy about it. He snapped his mighty tail forward, trying to swat away the woman hugging his back. Annileen hung on, pulling herself ahead, handhold by tenuous handhold. Vilas was gone now, having angled off to the north; Annileen was committed. Still clinging, she grabbed Kallie’s arm and tried to pull her up.
    No good. The load was too much, her hold too awkward. Annileen feared toppling them both off. But better they go on or go off the creature together. Annileen reached over to grab a handful of shirt …
    … and saw something off to the right.
    It appeared just at the edge of her peripheral vision. For a split second, she thought it was the imagined Tusken. But jerking her head backward for a moment, she saw the reality was more unbelievable. Another rider had joined the chase, angling in from the faraway rise to the southeast. A figure clad in brown, racing at a diagonal to catch up with them. Running at full tilt—
    —on an eopie ?
    Annileen looked down at Kallie, whose face was frozen in terror—and then back at the newcomer. She’d seen it all right: an eopie. A fraction the size of the dewback, four-legged and tan. An eopie could sprint, but its legs were no match for those of the dewback. And yet the hooded figure guided it quickly along, with no more effort than one would exhibit driving a speeder bike.
    Annileen gawked. The rider couldn’t possibly catch up to them, but he was certainly trying. Not all desert brigands were Tuskens, she knew—but a smart scavenger wouldn’t chase anyone down in this terrain. He’d wait for the women to break their necks. Did this one actually want to help them? she wondered.
    He answered that himself. “Hold on!”
    The eopie nimbly danced along the edges of the sandpits, making no more imprint with its hooves than if it had been riderless. The man—close enough now that Annileen could make out a human nose and an auburn beard and mustache under the flapping hood—rode the creature expertly, approaching Snit without seeming regard for his own safety. Snit’s tail whipped back and forth wildly, forcing the eopie rider to weave and dodge. But he continued to accelerate.
    A second later he was alongside the deranged reptilian. Annileen looked ahead at the tortured terrain, worse than anything behind. Snit’s massive hind feet might punch through the crusty sand and catch anywhere. When Annileen looked back, she could tell the mystery rider saw the danger, too, His blue-gray eyes locked with hers. “Give me the girl!”
    Without thinking, Annileen repositioned her arm under Kallie’s chest and pushed. Her daughter, unaware of the new arrival, screamed as she lost her last handhold on the reins. But less than a breath separated the eopie and the dewback now—and a long arm reached from the billowing cloak to grab her. Annileen transferred Kallie’s other arm to his and shoved.
    Annileen slammed across the monster’s back as the weight fell away. She saw Kallie and the rider atop the eopie, which was slowing now from the additional burden. No way would it carry two for long, nor three for a second. Snit was her problem. Recovering, she looked forward. It was just a matter of finding the—
    Krakkk! Snit’s rear foot struck a hole. Annileen went somersaulting forward, even as the impossible mass of the dewback went aloft underneath her. She saw light as the suns flashed before her eyes—and then darkness as the bulk of the dewback eclipsed them.
    And then, nothing.

CHAPTER SIX
    “MOM!”
    Annileen opened her eyes and swiftly shut them. “I can’t see.”
    “Wait,” Kallie said, brushing the grains of sand from her mother’s eyelashes. “Try now.”
    Annileen tried again. She saw a young face stained by saddle grease hovering over her, lit from above by the high suns. Annileen tried to speak, but her voice cracked. “K-kallie. You … you—”
    “It’s okay, Mom. I’m okay.”
    “—you’re grounded,” Annileen said. “For life.”
    Kallie grinned. “She’s going to be all right.”
    “Yes,” replied someone else. “She is.”
    Annileen couldn’t hear where the voice was coming from, but she didn’t want to sit up to look, either, not when the sand was nice and soft and