So, at long last, I rise again from the dead to update this story. My apologies for the wait...hopefully, it will be worth it.

Where Did He Go?

At oh-nine-thirty-seven local standard time, Contingency Order 66 was transmitted to Commander Bly of the 327th Star Corps near Niango, Felucia.

At oh-nine-thirty-nine, Aayla Secura lay dead; her eyes still open and intensely focused in a way that gave Bly pause. She hadn't had enough time to activate her lightsaber – and she had known it, hadn't she? She'd been cornered, and she'd known it, and she hadn't even laid a hand on her weapon. Instead, she'd turned her back on her soldiers, putting all of her concentration into that one desperate stare in the instant before she'd died.

And, apparently, it worked, because at oh-nine-forty, Jinx Erquina escaped Galle's detachment, disappearing into the dense rainforest as easily as if he'd been born there, despite being reportedly wounded in the ensuing firefight. Five standard minutes later, the little red blip that indicated Erquina's position in Bly's tracking computer halted its progress; Omicron, sent to intercept the young Twi'lek, came upon the blip's coordinates three minutes after that. There they found only the boy's deserted lightsaber, which had been implanted with a locater beacon in accordance with Phase II protocol.

At the end of the day, Bly was not happy. All four Padawans assigned to the mission on Felucia had eluded his forces. Ekria, Lo'gaan, and Zonder were long gone; they'd been closer to base, able to hijack one of the transports and get off-planet. Erquina had not been so lucky; as the eldest Padawan and (ironically) the only one who'd had a living Master long enough to gain any notable leadership experience, he'd been leading the assault on Har Gau, which was deep in the forest and miles away from anything belonging to the Republic. So far, all he'd been able to do was hide – but he'd made up for it by hiding well. He intended to wait them out, Bly knew; the 327th was due back on Coruscant in one standard week, and they had one day left before they shipped out. After they retreated, Erquina could make his own departure without as much caution.

Bly was going to make the most of that day. He'd already failed his orders three times; once more was simply unacceptable. So he threw all of his resources into finding the lone Padawan, engaging them in an exhaustive, hours-long search. Erquina would have had to keep moving, that was for sure; with any luck, they could wear him down, or at least coerce him out into the open, where he held less of an advantage over them.

At eleven-hundred-fifty-three, at long last, the effort was rewarded. One blip on the track screen went static, while its seven companions chased after nothing across the map. Epsilon reported on the comm. that they had encountered the fugitive and were in pursuit; there was one man dead.

Epsilon lost Erquina shortly thereafter, but it did not matter. The 327th converged on the area in which the boy had been sighted. The comm. rang with angry shouts and orders; they were no longer pursuing their erstwhile little Commander, but a brother-killer. They would not take long to find him.

Twelve-hundred-five: Theta caught up with him. He escaped. Two casualties sustained.

Thirteen-twenty-eight: Another near miss, with one casualty, from Epsilon.

Fourteen-hundred: One more casualty, this time from Gamma.

And then, for another three hours, they hit another dry spot. Bly did not know why; he had tightened the gauntlet so much around the area, he was surprised the boy could even breathe without alerting his forces. The troopers were told to keep searching, look in the trees, and keep their guard up; Erquina was obviously not going to spare them out of sentimentality.

Seventeen-hundred-nine: Five blips went stationary on the tracking computer. It was the whole of Omicron.

Omicron. Jinx's friends.

Do you require any further proof of the Jedi's treachery, soldier?

A chill ran up Bly's spine. Snapping at Epsilon to hold their positions for the moment, he took his own team Beta to Omicron's coordinates to survey the damage.

Only…there was no damage. No trees charred from misfires, no dead troopers…no sign of struggle. The only pieces of evidence that the troopers had ever been there were five – no, six locator beacons, expertly removed from clone armor (and apparently a Jedi's lightsaber) and abandoned to lead him on a merry chase through the woods.

Just then, a message was patched through to his HUD on the faulty planetary comm. system. Automatically, Bly blinked in the required pattern to respond…and began to see a vid recorded from another soldier's helmet – Sergeant Mugs, according to the designation.

The sergeant had been standing in nearly the same position as Bly stood right now when he recorded this vid. Erquina stood in the middle of the clearing, panting, as if he had just stopped running.

Despite himself, Bly could not tear his eyes away from the little Commander whom he had once called by first name. The young Twi'lek stood with his shoulders stooped, his posture indicating he was in a lot of pain even if he wouldn't let his face show it. His robes were in tatters; he'd ripped them up for an impromptu patch-job on his right lek, which hung limp and was covered in dark blood.

But what struck Bly the most – as had been the case before, when another cherished face had spared him one last hurried glance before surrendering to death at his hand – were the eyes. Erquina, who had looked Mugs in the face less than an hour ago, seemed to peer into Bly's soul now; those dark eyes, once so determined, so intelligent, so brave, had regressed to the hard, haunted, almost feral expression of the abandoned child he had met one standard year ago. Against his will, the grizzled clone felt a pang of regret for so much progress lost.

In the vid, the boy was surrounded on all sides. He stared at Mugs, not incredulous, not after running for as long as he had, just…sad, in a rigid, hurt sort of way. Slowly, the green Twi'lek eased out of his defensive position to stand there, waiting, bone-tired in posture and expression. His uninjured lek moved behind his back, so subtly that Bly supposed he was just shrugging or sighing in his own way.

Bly watched as Mugs raised his deece, finger on the trigger…but his shot was obstructed by white clone armor, rushing suddenly out into the clearing from his two.

"S-stop!" the errant clone stuttered, his right hand gesticulating wildly, his left hand lifeless – dislocated at the shoulder, probably. "Mis-mistake! Don't shoot!"

"Droll, get out of the way."

"No! Sir! Please! There's – there's no way…"

"Droll! Get out of the way or I'll have to shoot you too."

At that, the errant clone seemed to gain some measure of confidence. "Then do it."

Silence. Bly could make out movement in the foreground, as two other troopers looked at each other reflexively, while the medic looked Mugs' way. Mugs, for his part, kept his eyes trained on the insubordinate clone in front of him.

"Droll…"

"Do it!" The clone removed his helmet, revealing a tear-streaked face and a head of dark hair parted in twain by an ugly scar. "Do it, if you think it's so right! But first…Threar, t-tell me what the Commander's saying, behind his back, where he thinks we c-can't see."

Erquina started, obviously surprised that the trooper had noticed. "Droll…"

"W-what's he saying? I-I know you won't tell me, sir, b-but Threar can…"

"It's the remembrance."

At that, all ambient sound seemed to come to a halt. Mug's camera finally shifted, to his left, just barely.

The third trooper spoke again, his voice tellingly thick. "It was the remembrance. For Longshot, Pip, Nexu, Muja, and Harry."

Bly got up the casualties list, looked up the names. They were the five casualties of that day, the ones from Epsilon, Theta, and Gamma.

Mugs had seemed to get it, too, because the camera shifted quickly back to Droll. The scarred trooper nodded shakily.

"Sarge…h-how many enemies you got that'd say the remembrance after they killed you? How m-many?"

The cam remained still for a long, long moment, before Mugs retracted his blaster.

"None."

And there, the vid ended. Bly supposed that was all the explanation he'd ever get. Omicron had taken their little Commander and disappeared into space with him, and left not a shred of evidence as to where they had gone.

His day was up; he had but an hour left before the Corps needed to ship out. The disappearance was a mystery to be solved another time. Right now, Bly needed to tend to the remains of his best friend according to the traditions of the Order she'd died serving.