Star Wars does not belong to me. Just Skylar & Co.
The idea for this little oneshot has been nagging at me for a few days now. Hope you wonderful readers like it!
Kamino. Five and half standard years before Geonosis...
Nine year old Devrin looked to the right. Then to the left. Not a soul in sight. And no sign of the aiwha bait either. Of course, the kaminiise rarely came down to the training grounds. The only people who would be down here at this time of the night would be the night guards or the training sergeants. Which included his Buir. Out of all of the training sergeants, Orar Cordav was by far the nicest. He'd even adopted all the boys for whom he was responsible. Dev knew that he and his brothers were lucky to have him. To be fair, most of the training sergeants were good to their boys. Except for Priest and Reau. Devrin, luckily, hadn't met them yet. But he'd heard his Papa rant about their methods enough to know that those two were bad news. He'd even caught his big sister, Skylar, who was fourteen, fussing at Jango Fett about his decision to hire them.
Sky sure doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut. That much was certain. Which was why he was down here when he should have been sleeping in the quarters he shared with his sqaud mates. Frost, Quirk, and Dover.
He was down here because Sky had made him mad. Again. She'd fussed at him for goofing off when he should have been paying attention. It's no big deal! We passed that exercise! It's not like we could have gotten killed. Papa, however, had sided with his eldest child. Buir had said something about them needing to be prepared. That they were going to start using live rounds soon. But they wouldn't do that, would they? I mean, we're just kids. And Buir would never let something like that happen to us. He loves us. He told us so. We're his sons.
But that was the farthest thing from his mind right then. The problem he was facing at the moment was much more important. How am I going to get into the Sickener room without setting off the alarms? Yeah, he was the techie of Tor Squad, but he hadn't yet dealt with anything as intricate as Tipoca City's security grid. Just the size of the control panel itself was daunting. And the fact that it was located in the open hallway didn't help matters either. Footsteps approached and Devrin pulled his head back into the crevice that he was currently hiding in. It's too early for a guard. And the footsteps don't sound right at all. Too heavy for a long-neck. And too light to be a sergeant. It's sounds like a-
At that moment, another young boy rounded the corner of the hallway. What's another cadet doing out of bed? Something else was off about the other clone too. He looked to be a little broader in the shoulders than Dev. A Null. One of Sergeant Skirata's boys. Like Dev, the Nulls didn't see themselves as property. But unlike Dev and his brothers, the Nulls were wild kids compared to the rest of the clones. Dev distinctly remembered times when they would vault from the ceiling of the mess and take pot shots at the Kaminoans. Calculated near misses. Even a di'kut could tell that the aiwha bait were scared of the six special ops clones.
Serves them right. Dev hadn't seen the Kaminoans as his masters since he'd met Buir and Skylar. That was three and half years ago. Yes, the kaminiise ruled here. Yes, Dev and his brothers had to obey them. But the Cordav boys knew that they themselves were much more than flesh droids. They mattered.
"What in the manda are you doing down here?" The Null clone was looking right at Devrin's hiding place. "Aren't you supposed in your quarters?"
How the osik did he even find me? Dev wasn't about to give the other clone the satisfaction of knowing that he'd been freaked out though, "I could say the same thing to you, ner vod." He moved into the hallway, muscles tensed to defend himself.
The other boy smirked, "You've got guts, vod'ika."
Devrin glared at him, "My name's Devrin. And I'm not little."
The other boy laughed, "Mereel. And you are too. You're younger than me."
"By just a week," Dev sulked.
"You're one of Cordav's boys, aren't you?" Mereel asked, genuinely curious. Devrin got the feeling that the Nulls, like commandos, didn't have much interaction with other clones.
"Yeah. What's it to ya?"
Mereel shrugged, "Just curious. Mind telling me what you're doing down here?"
"I need some nerf guts."
"From the Sickener? I sure hope you're not planning to eat that." Mereel made a face, "It's rotten."
"That's the idea. Not the eating part. The rotten part. It's part of my prank."
"On your squad?"
"On my sister."
"Skylar?" Mereel made another face. "You sure about that, Devrin? I've seen your sister fight. She's the only kid I know of who can pin Ordo. I don't think you want to make her mad."
Devrin was about to make a rebuttal when Mereel pushed him back into the crevice. Both boys held their breath as the night guard passed through the hallway. Taking absolutely no notice of the two little rulebreakers.
"Whatever she's gonna to do to me will be totally worth it," Devrin whispered once the guard was out of sight. "Especially with what I've got planned."
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Mereel, an impish grin on his face, arrogantly swaggered up to the control panel and punched in a command code. The doors whooshed open without even the sound of an alarm.
We're in! Eleck!
With Mereel's help, Devrin was able to locate a bucket into which both clones scooped a considerable amount of stinky, rotting nerf guts from the Sickener. As they sneaked their way back upstairs to the sergeants' floor, Dev elaborated further on his plan and Mereel refined it.
Mereel had also made it very clear that Skylar was to never find out that he was involved.
The Null waited in the hallway while Devrin entered his father and sister's quarters first, to make sure that Buir was already gone to meet with Sergeant Skirata. Which he was.
Sky's door was still closed, which meant that she was still asleep. Devrin motioned to Mereel to come inside and both boys immediately set to work. As soon as the trap was done, the Null took off.
Devrin waited several minutes to make sure his new found brother was in the clear. Then, with a big, silly grin on his face, he knocked on his sister's door.
What happened next was beyond priceless. He was laughing so hard that he could barely breathe as he ran down the corridors of Tipoca City. A furious Skylar, covered from head to toe in rotting guts, was hot on his heels.
About 2 years ABG, someplace in the Outer Rim...
A sad smile came to Mereel's face as he remembered that day. Although he hadn't seen his and Devrin's prank actually happen, he had been hiding in another hallway as Skylar had chased her younger brother past him.
Poor Devrin. That's no way for a brother to go. He was painfully aware that, according to the medical reports that he'd hacked into, Dev's injury had been the same as Fi's. But unlike Devrin, Fi was still alive. Damaged, yes. But alive. Dev should be too. But, unlike Omega Squad, Tor had been beyond the reach of expert medical help.
"You okay, vod'ika?" Jaing asked, helmet in his hands, his brown eyes furrowed in concern for his brother.
"Fine. It's just that I expected that little trickster to outlive us."
Jaing nodded his head solemnly, "Dev was the master of narrow escapes, I'll give you that. Sky's gotta be taking this hard."
"She's not the only one."
Ni Partayli = I remember you
kaminiise = Kaminoans
Buir = Papa
di'kut = idiot
manda = heaven
osik = crap
ner vod = my brother
vod'ika = little brother
eleck = yes
Please R&R.