...And so after a short break and watching the season finale of SW: The Clone Wars, I'm continuing this story.

This is a short chapter, intentionally. Just to let some people (and myself) know I'm not dead.

Enjoy...or die.

Chapter 5: Blood

"We know you're there. Come on out." I yelled, with a taste of fear.

"We come in peace!" Yells Gidget, reassuringly. I could tell she was just as nervous as I am. Everyone was. Nothing in the mission specs said anything about being attacked by angry natives.

Well, then again, the specs were classified.

"We know you do." A voice spoke some distance away, in a language only Dugs speak. Duh, we are on Malastare. From what I've heard, the Dug language isn't a required school course, so I'll just translate for you. The voice came from the Dug that just walked out of the jungle. He was decorated with jewels of various colors, most being dull and earth-based. They hung off the cloth that draped over his slanted head and covered his unusually proportioned body, and shook as he walked towards us. Compared to the other figures that were just stepping out of the brush, he was quite well represented and obviously a person of power. Chief of a tribe?

"They all come in peace, but, depending on their true intentions, most leave in pieces. What are you affiliated with?"

"The Rebel Alliance." Ahsoka clarified before I even got a chance to think of something to say. "We have a garrison here."

The "Chief" let out what sounded with a cocksure chuckle. At first I thought it was because he didn't believe Ahsoka, but it was actually for a much more grim indication.

"Had would be a much more suitable term, if you're referring to what's left of that little party just outside of our village."

"What happened to them?" Asked Alea, although I'm pretty sure the answer's obvious.

"Slaughtered!" Yep, that's what I thought. "Like animals! I swear there's a 3 inch pool of blood in that building." For someone describing a grisly battle scene, he didn't sound too unhappy, if you get what I mean.

"May we see?" Asked Ahsoka

"If you really want to, although I recommend leaving the youngling behind. I don't know much about the human psych, but I'm pretty sure she shouldn't see this. She and your friends can wait in the village."

"Gotcha." I turned to Gidget, who already wore a disappointed look behind her goggles. "Go to the village and wait for us."

"But-"

"No buts! You heard the nice whatever-the-hell-it-is. Go wait in the village!"

"Why should I?" She snapped back at me in a typical rebel yell.

"Because I'm the leader of this team. What I say, goes. When you're the leader of this team, you can do whatever the hell you want. Go. Now."

I couldn't tell what expression she was giving me, but I could tell she was not happy. She stormed off and followed the Dugs to the nearby village.

"Keep an eye on her. You know how she is." They needn't say a word, because they got what I mean. They trailed some distance behind the leaving group, while me and Ahsoka followed the Chief to the "crime scene."

...And a crime scene it was.

You could smell the stench of Death within 10 feet of the building, even past the strong aroma of nearby plants.

Inside was even worse: the walls was painted blood. Bodies lined the floor, some with simple but deep cuts that looked almost feral to severed body parts scattered about the concrete. The smell of the decaying and decayed was wretched and it gave me memories of that time I was trapped in a body bag inside a morgue. Funny story. I'll tell you sometime.

I looked at Ahsoka, expecting her to not even be phased by the gory scene. Quite the contrary, actually: Her breathing was heavy and she looked ghostly pale. She looked like she was about to pass out.

"You wanna leave?" I say with sympathy to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it off, saying she feels fine. Disturbed, but fine. "I thought someone in your profession would see lots of blood." I pointed out, thinking of the multiple different myths of what a lightsaber can cut through. Over half have been proven false, but it was pretty obvious what it could cut through.

"Lightsabers are hot enough to immediately cauterize the wound upon impact, so there's little to no blood seen. Besides, it's not the blood. There's just so much... so much..."

"Blood?"

"No! Well yeah, but there's so much... darkness. I can feel it in the Force. Darkness and fury. Whoever did this was screaming hate."

"Yeah, hate's pretty apparent here." I muttered to myself while looking around. Desensitizing to the blood and bits lying around, I could look at things a little easier and more clearly. One thing I noticed was only one body was intact, and it was slouched on a computer with a plugged-in Holo. Walking up to the figure, I recognized it easily: The girl in the holo we got for the mission. Aside from a nasty cut on her stomach under her coat, she was pretty normal looking compared to everyone else.

"Hey, Ahsoka?" Upon hearing her name, she turned to see me holding up what was left of the poor girl. She seemed to recognize her, too, from the look of her face.

"Dead men tell no tales." I speak in a voice complete with doom. I couldn't decipher her reaction. It was somewhere between disgusted with my actions to a finding my actions darkly humorous. Either way, it was replaced with a questionable look.

"So whoever did all this used her to lure someone here, but who?"

"Well, whoever did this apparently has no love for the alliance. Maybe it just wanted to lure more here and finish the job? You sure it wasn't the Empire trying to wipe out resistance?"

"Lure unsuspecting victims to their fate and commit a bloody mass-murder? Doesn't seem like something the Empire would do." She roamed around the room, inspecting the corpses. "These cuts were made with a bladed weapon. Clean-cut steel. Imperial Stormtroopers doesn't use Mineral-made blades. Hell, they don't use any kind of blade, only blasters. Only something that emits some kind of energy, and by all the blood around here, I'd say someone like Vader or some other rogue lightsaber user is out of the question.

"Local population?" I brought up.

"There's no one on this planet, or even in this system, that is against the Rebel Alliance. I doubt most know we even exist, yet."

"I'm getting nothing. Maybe it was just some raid gone bad. You know how Dugs are. Maybe even some bounty hunters."

"That seems most likely, but something like this could not have just gone wrong. These cuts are very precise, Dugs and bounty hunters just swing their blade like a blind madman and hope to get a lucky hit, not even intending to kill with it." She seemed to sense my reaction to that painfully stereotypical remark and said a quick "No offense" to me.

"None taken, but you're right. I admit that I only use my blade as a last resort. I sure as hell wouldn't use it as a first choice to take out a whole room full of blaster armed rebels. Not that I couldn't, mind you. Only if I was bone dry of ammunition and my hands were broken. You know, it could've been some wild animal. Aren't Nexu found on this planet?" I asked while she took a step outside through the side door.

"Yep, espessially around areas with high activity. A pack probably found their way in and slashed this place to Kingdom come. But that doesn't explain the-" She stopped speaking suddenly, catching my attention. I ran out to find her and my eyes immediatley fell on the southern-most wall which featured a large message... in blood.

"How did we miss that?" She didn't hear me, her gaze focusing with intent on the short, sweet and to-the-point message:

COME FIND ME

I DARE YOU!

...Complete with an arrow pointing into the mist-covered jungle.