Chapter VI: In Hiding (19 BBY)

Commander Hal stared at the holographic tactical report as it flashed the location of his troops. He watched as several AT-RTs scurried across the holoemitter, searching for the young Jedi that had seemingly escaped from their grasp.

It had been four hours since Order 66 had been received and carried out, and now the bodies of the dead traitors were being disposed of while the search went on.

They'll find that traitor soon, and he will be brought to justice just like the rest of them…

The chirp of his comlink brought Hal out of his daydreaming, sending the clone to check up on the hourly report.

"Commander Hal, sir, the rain is impeding our AT-RTs we request sending all units back to base until the ground is more stable. We can continue the search on foot, if you would like sir!"

"Have your AT-RTs report to base, and order your pilots to continue the search on foot."

"Yes sir."

The sound of the pouring rain echoed loudly throughout the cave as Jorec huddled as far as he could into a crevice, his body compact to try and hold his body heat in. He shivered as the temperature in the cave fell to 65 degrees; cold compared to the 90-degree heat that he had experienced just that afternoon.

This afternoon, he thought. It seems so long ago…

A sound outside of the cave alerted Jorec from his thoughts, with a quick movement of his hand, his drying tunic flew quickly to his side, and his master's old lightsaber flew into his hand. Jorec crouched, his left thumb hovering over the activation switch.

"Sir, what about this cave?"

A dreadful silence filled the air, broken only by the slowing rain outside. Jorec's breathing quickened in fear as the clones were seemingly ready to barge into the cave and murder him as they had murdered the other Jedi.

"The scanner's not picking up anything from inside of it. It's probably clean like the rest of them."

"Don't you think we ought to check this one out?"

Another period of silence, Jorec's thumb was shaking over the activation switch, waiting for the clones to enter the cave and attack him. And with the events of the rest of the day, there was little doubt that they would kill him.

"We don't need to, another patrol found something about four clicks downstream."

Jorec went off guard for a second, a slowly let out a sigh of relief.

They found my robe. Thank the Force for the insight to throw it into the river after I nearly fell into it.

An hour later, Commander Hal sat once again next to a tactical display. After finding the cloak on the banks of the Rielest River, most of the activity on the display had died down.

A lieutenant quickly entered the room, carrying a drenched brown robe, the robe of a Jedi.

"Sir, here's the robe we found an hour ago. You wished to see it?"

"Yes, lay it out on the table over there."

The lieutenant unfolded the robe and laid it on the white table. Commander Hal's eyes glanced over the robe, his eyes studying the few burn marks littering the back portion of it. One hole was in the shoulder region and another in the lower back. He carefully studied the holes and finally turned to the other soldier in the room.

"I suppose that no body was found?"

"No sir, but evidence near the trail our target fled upon suggested that he fell into the river, presumably after being shot."

"When the river calms down, send some divers to search the river for a body. I doubt we'll find it however, it's probably fish food by now."

"Yes sir."

Hal watched as the lieutenant left the room. He sighed and tossed the robe to the ground.

A slight growl awoke Jorec as the early morning light begin making its way into the cave's entrance. Jorec snapped to attention, his hand immediately grasping the lightsaber on the ground near his waist. In the pale light, he could see a large creature rummaging around throughout the cave. It seemed to stand on its hind legs and roared towards the frightened young Jedi.

With his hand outstretched, Jorec slowly approached the creature. He attempted to use the Force to calm the angry creature down, but was rewarded with another show of power from the creature. Jorec activated his lightsaber and held towards the shape.

In the blue light cast by his lightsaber, Jorec could see the creature that was threatening him. The creature was catlike, with grayish black fur that turned to black on its back. The creature hissed at the lightsaber, and then took a swipe at the Jedi invading its home. Its claw was intercepted by the lightsaber, and with a sizzling sound and a smell of burning flesh and hair, the paw was severed from its leg.

The creature howled in pain and with a surge of adrenaline running through its system, attacked Jorec again. This time, the lightsaber met with the creature's head, killing it.

Jorec swung his lightsaber around the cave, searching for any other threat, only to deactivate it as no other threat was to be found in the cave. He quickly walked over to his now dry tunic and dressed himself. Still holding his lightsaber, Jorec sneaked towards the cave's opening. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, and the setting moons provided little illumination. Not wanting to risk drawing attention to himself by igniting his lightsaber, Jorec returned back to the possible safety of the cave and sat down.

Sitting in the dark cave alone, Jorec began remembering the events of the day before. Tears came to his eyes as he remembered watching the clone soldiers he thought he could trust raise their blasters and begin firing upon him and the other Jedi. He began to wonder why the troops had betrayed him. Was it a defect in their creation, a remnant of their host still remaining in them? Or was it something worse? Could it be that the troops were told to betray the Jedi?

Jorec shook his head; the last choice couldn't be true. It had to be a defect in their creation. All he had to do was find the nearest city and lay low until a Jedi rescue party came looking for him. He tried to comfort himself with this thought, but deep down he knew that there would be no rescue party. For all he knew, he was the last Jedi alive…

Commander Hal stood in front of the holoemitter and looked at the cloaked man whose image was projecting from it. The new emperor was sitting down somewhere, and seemed impatient.

"Commander Hal, I assume you have good news for me?"

"Yes, milord. Upon receiving your order three days ago, we executed it while they were training. They were easily dealt with, sir."

"Then why the delay in contacting me?"

"We were having trouble locating the last body. However, we were able to locate evidence that he was indeed killed."

"What evidence, commander?"

"We found evidence that he was fatally shot, and then fell into the Rielest River about a kilometer from our camp. We sent divers to locate his body, but we have evidence to believe that his body was eaten by local wildlife."

"Again, what evidence?"

The Emperor's scowl startled Hal.

"Milord, we lost four of our five divers to an extremely carnivorous fish in the river. There is no possible way for him to have survived. And all of our scouting trips, that searched in a 15-kilometer radius of our camp has come up with other evidence of his survival."

Commander Hal flinched as the Emperor seemed to think this over. He had recently heard rumors of a displeased Emperor killing disobedient clones through some strange power.

The Emperor's face quickly turned away from Hal, and looked down. A slight smile seemed to form on his face.

"You have done your job well, Commander. Prepare to report back to Coruscant."

"Yes, milord. But what about the Separatists? Their camp is still here?"

"My information on that matter is classified, but be assured that there will be no other attacks on your base. I have foreseen it."

"Yes, milord."