FORESIGHT and SCOPE: BOOK TWO

C H A P T E R F O R T Y-E I G H T

THIRD PERSON POV

Fern and Hunter had been stranded once when they were first in their dynamic partnership. On Tatooine, of all places. Their mission was to simply scout and map out the different regions where bounty hunter guilds reigned and where the Hutts had marked their territories. Unfortunately, their tiny shuttle was swallowed up by a void collapse in the unforgiving sand dunes. The suns blazing scorched their skin to a crisp. They depleted their water rations with amatuerity. It was pure luck they survived; after trudging through the desert for two days, they stumbled across and found refuge at a humble moisture farm.

While, there was no sand to slosh through as they did on the Outer Rim planet, Fern and Hunter and the rest of the squad were getting peppered by the wind-blown granules, which was just as annoying. The female clone scratched her irritated arms as she walked alongside her partner. The baking sun mixed with the suffocating humidity caused all the clones to sweat profusely. She peered over her shoulder and saw Wrecker sharing the last drops of water from his canteen. Her own tongue yearned to be quenched. After hiking for hours, her own flask was desiccated of moisture. At least the narrow gorge provided a dispersion of natural awnings at multiple levels across its oddly-wavy walls that temporarily relieved the basking rays.

"Here," Hunter handed Fern his container. When she declined his offer, he insisted. "Come on, Fern. I know you've drained yours." He cheeked his handsome smile—a gesture she just couldn't resist.

"Thank you." she breathed, taking a long swig.

"Phew...How much further?" Wrecker whined from the back of the squad.

"You will not like the answer." Tech said bluntly. He pulled out his datapad anyway to calculate.

"Havoc-4, this is Havoc-5. Do you copy?" Omega called into her comm. "Echo, are you there?"

"Omega, there's no use in using your comm. We're much too long-range from anyone who could pick up our signal." Fern sighed.

"Echo especially will not since he disabled his communication device." Tech noted.

"What?" Omega gasped. "Why?"

"I assume he's on a sensitive mission." The intellectual clone said casually.

Fern returned the canteen to Hunter as she hung her chin. Her eyes locked on the dirt path in deep thought. How would Tech know Echo disconnected any means of communication from us? Has he been routinely monitoring our radio and comms for Echo's signal and noticed when it switched off? Or perhaps he contacted Tech and informed him he was cutting ties? Either way, Wired-Brain never passed on that knowledge to the rest of us until now...

Fern's subconscious was interrupted when Hunter's hand suddenly grasped her bicep, halting her in her tracks. When she looked at him in confusion, his chin was tilted up and his eyes narrowed. The gusts of wind wisped through his bangs. She opened her mouth to question why they've stopped...only to sense the ground underneath her feet rumbling...she gulped when she looked down and saw the sand and tiny rocks pulsating, puffing up a small dust cloud around their ankles. When all the clones rotated to look down the path they had just came, whatever was causing the rapidly-increasing tremors was approaching fast.

"Run!" Hunter ordered, slipping on his helmet and forcing Omega in front of him and Fern. Everyone dashed through the gorge. The female clone made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder. Her dark eyes widened at the stampede of ruminant hoofed-mammals with large ears and antlers charging at them in full-speed.

"Faster, everyone!" she yelled. It would not matter as the herd split down the middle and swallowed the clones inside their blitz. If they didn't escape, they would all be trampled to death. Fern and Hunter sprinted on each side of the young girl to shield her from the rushing animals. The aggressive clopping of hooves drummed in Fern's ears as she whipped her head around to spot a way out.