There weren't many foodstuffs in the galaxy that could satisfy the end-of-campaign appetite of a teenage Togruta.
But a Nerf-Knockout at Dex's—heavy on the meiloo-salsa, hold the jerba cheese—came pretty karkin' close.
Rare enough to need blasting twice went unspoken.
Hermione hadn't forgotten the first time the debonair Master Jedi (that is, once the mane had been sheared into something altogether less unfortunate) sauntered through the door with this colorful… child bouncing at his heels, nor how he had proceeded to pick casually at a salad and descant on Geonosian mineral formations while she gnawed on two pounds of raw bantha loin and licked the plate clean of its bloody remains.
("Oh, this is an improvement, actually," he had blithely reassured the waitress. "It's taken years to wean the other one off insects.")
A few years and something like ten fully-matured nerfs later, little had changed except that the Padawan—yes that was the term—stood taller, walked bolder, and was sitting in the sole company of a bleach-blonde clone.
These mysterious beings were thin on the ground in CoCo Town, klicks away as it was from the GAR's barracks and comprised entirely of warehouses, antique vendors, and gentrified caf joints where unpaid soldiers could find little to entertain. Hermione tried not to stare at the manufactured man. It didn't escape her notice that the clone must have taken a shine to girl and the striking blue pattern on her horn things, for he'd painted his equally striking armor to match.
Well, there was something to be said for the aesthetics of war.
Speaking of. Just as the Togruta was making a suspiciously deliberate scrawl at the bottom of the flimsi—did that say "Obes Kenobes?"—seven more plastoid-plated troopers clattered and shoved their way through the door, looking around the place expectantly.
One clone already commanded the greater attention of the diner's denizens and waitstaff. Eight silenced the place altogether.
A silence the troopers themselves, once they'd stopped banging into one another in a rambunctiously blitzed manner, did nothing to break. They'd spotted and then stared at Blondie, and he, assuming a rather proprietorial position over his booth and the heedless forger, glared back. Arms crossed. Eyebrow cocked.
All eight shared the same blue coloring, so a hostile standoff didn't seem likely. Hermione assumed they all belonged to the Togruta.
Finally, one of them, boasting two fancy shoulder plates, a sharp goatee, and a 5 stamped on his right temple, let out a protracted, chuckling " y" that after a few beats was no longer a remark but an uproarious laugh that infected his comrades.
The girl, who'd finished her counterfeiting job and handed the receipt back to Hermione—one for Dexster, like he ever bothered to bill the Jedi anyway—joined in the mirth with a fanged smile and punched Blondie on the shoulder, shrugging and rolling her eyes as if it all couldn't be helped.
Blondie didn't crack.
"'Mission report' my quarter-million-credit shebs," exclaimed Goatee, sidling into the booth next to Blondie and putting a chummy arm around his shoulder. "Sir."
The other clones weren't so bold. Packets of feeble spice gum and adulterated Corellian chocolate swapped shielded hands but otherwise they just looked on in puerile delight at a safe distance.
Blondie shrugged off his overfamiliar subordinate. "Go away, Fives."
"Yeah, come on Fives," urged one of the other clones, sporting unusually long hair. He gestured with a fistful of spiceballs. Someone was about to have a delirious time with something with six arms at 79's. "You won. Let the Captain enjoy his date."
Fives shook his head. "No, no, no. I wanna hear how he did it."
He leaned forward around his Captain. "Come on, sir," he whined at the Togruta, "tell us the truth. What bet did you lose? Double-deecee's here managed to silence a few more clankers than you, didn't he? We all saw the General throwing you around at those karkin' steep bug holes. No time to count clankers when you're taking out the big guns—thanks for that by the way, you really saved our six. No shame in it, sir, no shame at all. And now I'm sure the Captain here will demonstrate our collective gratitude by ordering a round of"—towards the end of this self-satisfied monologue Fives's eyes had lit upon a steaming platter of nuna bacon and hash exiting the kitchen—"whatever that is."
The Togruta's wide grin grew positively wicked as her tongue traveled slowly across one set of fangs to the other. Her orange arm, grazed and dirty, reached out over the helmet wedged securely in the booth and clasped Blondie's shoulder plate with an affectionate shake.
"Hand down the wrong hole, Fives," she announced with some pride, shaking her head. "I asked Rex."
There was another protracted silence. Blondie/Rex bowed his head with a blush and hint of a smile.
Hermione hesitated to interrupt the scene, but the … the couple's order was up and she felt the only thing more unappetizing than uncooked nerf patties were cold uncooked nerf patties. She grabbed the plates and made for the booth just as Fives was deliberately extracting himself. With the couple staring after him in confusion, he made to walk out of the joint altogether, but stopped abruptly next to his comrades and executed an about-turn with military precision.
The others caught on in eerie concert. Boots thumped. Heels clicked. Plastoid clacked.
Hermione froze next to the booth in awe, plates still in hand.
Seven troopers stood at attention.
"Kandosii, Commander," said Fives, saluting his officer with a wink. The others followed suit, before turning on their heels and marching out of the diner.
A stifled clap from some corner and the rising tide of buzzing voices told Hermione that the diner's other patrons were intrigued by this impromptu show of martial culture. She finally deposited the plates, taking special care that the red juices swilling around the soaked bun of the Nerf-Knockout didn't drip onto the table. Rex's grazer loaf, however, an uninspiring brick of brownish-grey meat and unknowables, probably would have stuck to the underside of a passing freighter.
With the speed of a Jedi, a starved carnivore, or both, the Togruta had her hands and jaws around the saturated sandwich in a fraction of a second, oblivious to all else except the third heaven of delight that was a hard-earned and perfectly prepared meal on someone else's tab.
She didn't even acknowledge the SMACK! of flesh and armor behind them as Fives, all military decorum out the airlock, plastered himself against the window like a hapless beldon on a cruiser's viewport and smeared a slobbery, juvenile face in his captain's direction. Rex sighed and lifted a gloved hand in exasperation before turning his attention to the grazer loaf.
Thanks to her employer, Hermione knew a bit more than most about Kaminoan industrial cloning, and she remembered what Dex had once said about the troopers in the GAR.
("They grow 'em fast in jars. Warm ooze and tubes and suchlike. We've got a bunch of overgrown kids with blasters protecting the Republic.")
Suddenly, the goatee didn't look so sharp and the bronzed boyish face squished up against the glass didn't look like a soldier.
He was just a kid, his mate was on a date, and he was constitutionally obliged to be a nuisance.