CHAPTER TEN – SORORITY RISING

The next morning at the Phi Kappa Lambda house, an annoyed sophomore tried to connect her comlink to the HoloNet for the millionth time. She had no idea why it wasn't working – nothing was on the antenna, nothing was visibly broken, so it should be working. Except it wasn't.

The doorbell rang. She got up, stretched, and lazily padded over to answer it. "Hello?"

She almost passed out.

In the doorway stood a tall, handsome, very muscular man. Small soul patch. Cocky grin. It was all the sophomore could do not to fan herself.

"I'm here to fix the HoloNet," the guy said, flashing his smile and flexing his biceps the smallest bit.

The sophomore squeaked and opened the door.

…

Thirty minutes before the repairman arrived at the door, a sister gave her two siblings the evil eye.

"I don't believe it," Steela says. "You, all by yourself, are going to distract the whole sorority from the fact you're cloning their comms by fixing their HoloNet? And Sierra's going to distract an entire frat? How?"

"Look," Sierra protested. "Hutch can block the signals all he wants, but that's not going to clone any comms. I'll be fine, Steela. Guys love helping girls; it makes them feel manly."

"And girls love a man in uniform," Saw straightens his collared shirt. "It'll be a breeze, Stee. You just sit back and relax."

"Oh, like that's possible," Steela grunts, hefting a box in her arms. "You never know how much stuff you have until you have to move it. And I didn't sleep last night. Unless you want to take over all of this, relaxing is impossible."

…

Saw and Sierra make it three blocks into their route before they stop and look at each other.

"I know how you're really getting into the house," Sierra says.

"I know you know," Saw agrees, removing a bottle of Molly's baby oil from his toolbox and unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the world's most cut up, barely-can-be-called-a-shirt T-shirt. He squeezes a generous amount of baby oil into his hand and then holds out the bottle. "Get my shoulders for me, will you?"

Sierra rubs the oil into Saw's back and shoulders, making sure they're not too shiny. He's busy working on his abdomen when he hears the rustle of clothing behind him. "Saw, will you get my back?"

Saw's head snaps around. Sierra raises an eyebrow at him, wearing nothing but her shorts and her red bikini top.

"Put your shirt back on!" Saw hisses.

"Why? You aren't wearing one either."

"I'm also not going to be around a bunch of perverted frat guys!" Saw argues, grabbing her shirt and holding it out to her. "No sister of mine is walking around like that. Shirt. Now."

Sierra rolls her eyes and pulls the T-shirt over her head. "Whatever, Saw."

"You'll thank me later," he says. "Okay, remember what Hutch said. You just have to get near the comlinks to clone them, and if you see any numbers take them down. Got it?"

"Got it," Sierra grabs her bag and walks away, leaving Saw en route to the sorority's house. He walks away, whistling with anticipation.

The second she's out of sight, Sierra sets her bag down, yanks her shirt over her head, and stuffs it in the bag.

SAW

Getting into the house as the gorgeous IT guy is the easy part. The hard part, I find out, is actually doing my job.

I cloned the first girl's comlink without a problem and on my way to their HoloNet router I cloned a second and third. But these girls don't look like ringleaders; I need the Pantoran and the Twi'lek Steela mentioned.

Meanwhile, I have a pretty good start. Other girls are trickling in from the house, no doubt because of a message the first girl sent telling them about the "HAWT IT GUY!"

"What's your name?" one asks, sprawled on the floor and watching me with rapt attention.

I fall back on one of my old aliases. "I'm Wes. And you are?"

The girl blinks. "Zara."

I give her a nod. "Nice name, Zara."

"That's a good grift," Lux notices. "Nice job using her name. But don't you already have her comlink?"

I'm starting to understand why Sierra throws Lux dirty looks when he rushes her during a job. I'm not even a grifter and I can tell it's a delicate art.

"Hey, can you bring whoever's in charge here?" I ask. "I need to explain something to them."

Zara gets to her feet. "Okay," she says and walks over to the stairs. "Hey Jenn! The IT guy needs you!"

"Hutch, how do I fix the HoloNet?" I whisper out of the side of my mouth.

"Plug in the chip I gave you," Hutch says through a mouthful of food. "It should fit right in the data port and clear my blocks."

Right. I fish around in my pockets for Hutch's chip and plug it into the port just as a Pantoran girl comes down the stairs. "Why does he need me?"

"You must be the president of the house," I stretch, flexing my biceps. Hope it isn't too suspicious. "Mind checking your HoloNet connection?"

The girl – Jenn – digs her comlink out of her pocket. I grab mine and start the clone.

"Everything's loading fine," she announces. "Thanks for fixing it."

"No problem," I announce, just as the clone completes. I put my comlink back. "So, you can expect the bill to arrive in about a week. I didn't do much; it should only be about twenty cred."

Jenn looks at me for a good, long time.

"Okay. Hold on, I should check the connection in the back of the house," she says. "Zara, will you keep him company?"

Zara's all too happy to oblige. "Sure. So Wes, how long have you been in IT?"

"Uh, a few -."

"Hey IT guy, the HoloNet doesn't work in the kitchen!" Jenn shouts and comes back to the living room.

Hutch…

As if he can read my mind, Hutch protests. "My blocks are gone! It must be the router itself – reset it."

I crawl back under the router and hunt for the button to reset when Jenn comes up behind me, grabbing me by the ankles.

"Is it working?" she demands.

I finally find the reset button and press it. "If it acts up again, just press this button to reset and it should be fine."

"Sure, IT guy," she says sweetly, making my stomach flip. Hopefully no one in my crew is listening to this, or I'll be good as renamed in Katooni's eyes for the rest of my days.

I get back on my feet and grab my toolbox. "I've done everything I can here. Reset it if there's a problem."

"Sure," three of the girls flash me huge smiles. Maybe the baby oil was a little too much.

…

The first thing Hutch says when Sierra and I enter the common room is "Oh, you are in so much trouble."

"Why are we in trouble?"

"Saw, you're not in as deep as Sierra. Did you guys know that Kuat takes security very, very seriously? And that they have traffic cameras just about everywhere?" He brings an image up on the screen.

"That would be you and Sierra leaving the docks," he says, and flips to another picture. "And this one – look at that, Saw. In this one, your collared shirt is gone and you're saying something to Sierra because she's in her swimsuit top. Fast forward a few minutes … and there's Saw, wearing his lovely shirt. And Sierra's in her T-shirt until we go forward about five minutes."

I slide my eyes over to Sierra. "What does he mean, until?"

Sierra shrinks, but Hutch keeps on rolling.

"Boom. Camera outside the frat house, and we have Sierra, but we don't have her T-shirt." He looks pointedly at her. "Lux wasn't too pleased with that one."

"Neither am I!" I announce. What was she thinking, working a job dressed like that?

Sierra groans. "I thought you were supposed to be doing tech support, not stalking us!"

"Well excuse me for watching your backs," Hutch rolled his eyes. "Did you get the comlinks?"

Sierra and I each plop our comlinks on his desk, and he pops out the data cards and plugs them into his computer. A series of comm numbers comes up on the screen.

"That's all I need," Hutch says, handing back our comlinks. "Sierra, if I were you I'd start explaining before your mom sees those pictures."

Sierra's face goes white and she speeds back to her room at a pretty good clip. I watch her as she goes.

"Hutch, is she … you know, all there?" I tap my head.

"Is she right in the head? Yeah," Hutch says.

I raise an eyebrow. There have been times I've questioned Sierra's mental state. "How can you be so sure?"

Hutch looks up from his keyboard. "Because after that stunt she pulled with Atai and Kira, I checked."

That was probably a sound decision, on many levels. I untie my shoelaces and go to pull the shoes off my feet.

And they don't move.

"Oh, come on," I grumble and try again. My feet didn't swell this much even during the rebellion, and I was fighting a war! We don't have time nor extra credits to buy new shoes for me, so I can't cut them off. That means there's only one option.

"Hutch, I need you to pull my shoes off."

Hutch rolls his eyes and grabs my foot. "Are you serious, Saw? You need me to get your shoes off for you? I don't even have to tie Katooni's shoes, and the last time I had to help Hero with hers was when she was nine months – what the heck?"

"Harder than it looks, huh?" I shoot back.

"What's wrong with these things?" he leans in for a closer inspection. "You're not wearing socks, and your feet don't look swollen…" Suddenly his eyes go huge. "Oh my God."

"What?"

"Dude, think back to the sorority house. Were any of the girls near your feet?"

"Yeah," I say, dread knotting in my stomach. "Why? What is it?"

Hutch rolls back onto his haunches. "Your shoes are glued to your feet."

"WHAT?"

"I can see the glue, and it's already dried," he confirms. "I'm gonna get Hero; she'll know what to do."

"G-glue?" I cough, when another thought strikes me. "Hang on, don't let Steela see this."

"I'm not getting Steela, I'm getting my wife!"

…

"This isn't funny," I growl as Hero pours rubbing alcohol on my feet to dissolve the glue.

"No, it's hilarious," Katooni corrects, snapping a picture on her comlink.

Tav giggles. "Uncle Saw's stuck!"

Steela, for her part, isn't laughing. She's about to boil over with anger. I can't blame her; if someone glued Steela's shoes to her feet I'd beat them into a bloody pulp.

"It's on," she growls. "I don't care whether or not they're in with the Empire, this is a low blow. Gluing shoes to Saw's feet?"

Sierra whistles. "Gotta give credit where credit's due. This is -." One look from Steela, and her mouth snaps shut.

"Safety is our highest priority," Ahsoka says, looking pointedly at Steela and me.

Hutch leans back from his computer. "And safe it is. There are no communications to or from any known Imperials or sympathizers. Just a few messages about buying Crazy Glue at the store."

Lux yanks on my shoes and they pop off my feet with a loud, painful pop! I tumble off the chair and land on my face on the floor.

"Okay, so it's safe," Steela continues. "Then what are we going to do? I have Crazy Glue."

"Steela, I think you're overreacting." Lux sticks his neck out

Steela's mouth drops open, and Ahsoka rushes to correct the mistake. "Maybe Crazy Glue is an overreaction, but we need to find some way to fight back against these students or our lives are going to be awful for the next week or so."

"And I agree," Lux straightens up and drops my shoe on the floor. "Saw, put some Vaseline on your feet. We need to think up a plan."

Phi Kappa Lambda (or at least Jenn) pulls no punches on her revenge quest. Gluing Saw's shoes might not have been their smartest move because they've awoken the wrath of his sister - and even though he's the oldest and adopted, Saw is Mina's son too. You all saw how well that turned out for Frey. :)

Thank you to starwarshobbitfics and MusicKeeper for your reviews. And speaking of which, please review!

Until next time,

LS