Skywalker senses life

	Insects and birds and amphibians continued to drone and chirp and croak, heedless of my problems, but their noise existed on another level than auditory. When I stretched out with my feelings and tried to locate the ghest through the Force, all I got was an overwhelming sense of the life surrounding me—nothing so specific as a single bird or fish or predator. I knew that many of the creatures were hungry and wanted to eat other creatures, but there was no sense that a certain one wished to eat me.
	There I stood, shifting my weight a bit and moving slightly to look alive, lightsabers humming, for five full minutes.
	“Maybe it’s moved on,” I finally said. “How about you try taking the remaining speeder back—I’ll guard you as you get on—and come back to pick me up?”
	Soonta said, “I suppose—” and then the ghest erupted from the swamp on my left, a flash of movement faster than I could track. By reflex I whipped the blade in my left hand toward it while simultaneously falling backward and swinging a fraction later with my right hand as well. Both swings connected, but the ghest connected, too. Its head got above and through my awkward defenses and it sank its teeth into the soft tissue between my left shoulder and my neck. It didn’t bite through or try to move up to my throat, however; by the time we hit the ground, its head and shoulders weren’t connected to the rest of the body. The swing I’d taken with my lightsaber had shorn through entirely, leaving me alive but with a dead ghest’s teeth buried in my flesh.