Lirane Athualla appeared in Scars, Chopper's story (Chapter 60 - Epilogue 1 and Chapter 71 - Finale).

Reading the small print, Lirane Athualla tapped the side of her lips with the stylus as she looked up at the big Wroonian. She didn't like him. He was arrogant and pushy, using his size to tower over her, trying to intimidate her.

For a moment she wished her guys were with her but Rex had asked them for assistance with one of his projects - a big one involving several ships, every clone deserter she knew of, and a dye job for the blond captain. Well, she had done that for him. She'd been changing her hair color almost monthly for years. Her guys were all eager to help - both in learning how to dye their hair and with Captain Rex's project. She had volunteered as well but the new, almost-anonymous, dark-haired Rex had shaken his head with a smile and the words 'you won't fit in, Lirane. I'm sorry'.

"It's a decent price, Nenish." She pushed the stylus against his chest, almost as if by negligence, and he stepped back. "I'm just not so sure about this clause here." She shook her head, flipping her hair, blue ombre to turquoise tipped in yellow this week - Torque's favorite colors, and pointed to the offending words. "It's not standard and I don't usually haul…"

Stormtroopers came with their own brand of noise and silence. Both Lirane and Nenish recognized it and reacted before the white-armored forms arrived at the docked Imperial cruiser. Lirane changed her mind, glad her guys weren't around.

There was the silence of the people as if they had vanished into the blinding sunlight while the noise of hard boots against the pavement spoke volumes. Nenish seemed to shrink back into the shadow of her ship as the troopers marched past and that merely confirmed Lirane's suspicions that the cargo he wanted shipped was not entirely legal.

But a lot of what she did wasn't entirely legal.

She stared at the stormtroopers in their immaculate armor and wondered if any of them were like Knaps - original Kamino clones. Like Kev and Kru and Torque and Zeer. After a moment's thought, Lirane realized she had met or knew a lot of the original series of clones.

Some of them were deserters like Rex and Chopper. Hard men with rare but beautiful smiles. Target wasn't original Kamino, but Sparti and felt almost childlike in comparison. There was Cut who, with his family, seemed more than most troopers and Gregor who seemed less. Wolfe and Medic Kix with his daughter in tow, were almost supernaturally observant, paranoid, and disdainful of 'civvies'. Although she seemed to count as an honorary clone to them — at least some times.

She'd been introduced to Gus and Sketch and Commanders Fox and Stone when she'd gone with Ash to Coruscant for her clearing flight and as a birthday gift the year before the Jedi Temple was destroyed. She'd heard that Gus and Fox had died while the others were now stormtroopers.

She didn't know what the cloned men did on the rare occasions she saw a few together. The meetings between them were usually brief, simply passing a few short minutes with tea and caf. And, almost no conversation.

But then, she made sure to leave after greeting them so they could talk freely without considering what to say and what to leave out of any discussion due to her presence. These days, it just made Rex and Zeer laugh at how obvious she was in giving them privacy. Kix graciously said 'thank you' each time as if it was the first time while Wolfe rolled his eyes. But Wolfe had presented her with a small wolf-faced charm he'd made from a thin sliver of his armor. 'It's good for anything I have,' he'd said. Though she couldn't tell where he'd removed it from. Knaps told her he'd probably shaved it from the palm of his gauntlet. Then he'd laughed and quipped that Wolfe was such a di'kut it might have come from his culet. Knaps laughed even harder at her mystified expression. 'His butt armor.'

Yep, thirty-four year old men with the sense of humor of boys.

Knowing her cousin's husband and the men she had helped rescue from Naboo, she treated each clone with as much kindness as possible. Though one-eyed Wolfe terrified her and Gregor frequently made her cry for the part of himself he had lost. But she only did that in private because he wouldn't understand her tears.

They'd be getting older. Zeer told her rank and file clones couldn't retire. Not anymore. They were almost twenty years old and physically forty. Zeer, with multiple healed broken bones, had been the first to complain about morning aches but a few of them did that now. Especially after the first time she offered Zeer a backrub.

"Anything," said her cousin with tears in her eyes and her arms around Knaps when Rex had come with some cure for the unnatural aging. "Anything I can provide is yours." Lirane had pressed her hand over her lips in anguish and awe as Rex smiled into her face.

"Your guys, too."

Lirane removed her hands and whispered the same word her cousin had said.

Rex hadn't taken them up on their promises, saying 'it's a gift', but Lirane kept a watchful eye and a sharp ear for any information that might prove useful to Knaps or the others.

The troopers she knew best, the ones who had deserted, were older than they should have been but not as old as clonetroopers-turned-stormtroopers. Some legislation had been run through the Galactic Senate, but the Emperor had denied retirement and those small freedoms within a couple of months. Now the original Kamino clones were condemned to fight until they died.

There couldn't be many left after so long a war, though Rex had mentioned a clone company still active. He hadn't seemed regretful to know clones still served in the army, merely pensive, so Lirane never asked or even thought too much about the logistics of rescuing an entire company. If Rex wanted it done, he'd see to it. But she told Knaps and Zeer to let him know she'd volunteer any help she could provide.

Looking over the sea of white-armored men, she gasp slightly. There was at least one more original clone. He stood in the middle of the stormtroopers isolated by his lack of armor over his dark clothing. His arms were pulled behind his back, tightly bound from wrist to elbow. Shackles locked his ankles together, forcing him to move at a shuffle. He looked tired, bruised and battered. He looked like he had no hope. But there was a sharpness in his eyes and a curve in his tight lips that spoke of victory. Lirane recognized the triumph in his expression.

But worse than that, he looked familiar. Like she'd met him once.

Running through her memory and coming up with nothing other than realizing she had met or knew a lot of clonetroopers, Lirane wondered how many of the station's civilians would know him for a clone rather than simply a man being taken to an Imperial cell? Though the face wasn't really a secret anymore, few people seemed to care.

After the stormtroopers had taken their prisoner into the cruiser, movement resumed and business continued as usual on the docks.

Lirane shook her head and shoved the contract back into Nenish's hands. "No, that clause is too iffy. Get someone else to take the shipment."

Nenish started to argue but Lirane, more concerned about the clone on the cruiser, forestalled any discussion with a shake of her head. "Absolutely not." She turned towards Athualla's Desire and started up the ramp, her mind a quandary of questions and who to get in touch with and how and should she chance following...

Nenish grab her at the elbow and found himself rolling back off the ramp onto the hard concrete of the dock. He was grasping his arms over his chest where she had struck him with the hard heel of her hand.

Lirane stared at him in shock, her mouth partially open, then glanced at her hands in surprise. She hadn't realized the enjoyable sparring with the clones had become an automatic reaction.

"My decision is final on my ship," she told him even as one of the white-armored troopers jogged over to keep the Imperial peace.

"Is anything wrong?" His voice told her he wasn't one of the originals.

She shrugged. "A disagreement about a contract I don't want to take and haven't signed."

Nenish nodded as he stood to his feet, pressing his hand gingerly against his chest. "Differing opinions on a contract paragraph. Nothing serious." He turned his head towards Lirane and his eyes blazed. "I'll get another carrier."

Lirane nodded, knowing Athualla Freight & Shipping wouldn't be too welcome on this dirtball of a planet anymore but that was secondary to her preoccupation with the original Kamino clone on that Imperial ship.

Lightly she bit her lip then smiled shyly at the stormtrooper. Had he been one of the guards escorting the prisoner? If nothing else, he was part of the Imperial Army and might know something. Like where the big ship was going.

"Could you keep me company for just a few minutes?" Her eyes flicked towards Nenish striding angrily away, rubbing his chest. She nibbled her lower lip in concern and twirled the tip of her blue-turquoise hair with a finger. "I'm a little worried about him coming back."

His name was Fero-986 and he was as susceptible as any other man to the flattery of a pretty girl.

—

Redemption sighed as he loped up the ramp of the civilian ship to get Fero. Long ago he learned that born-humans didn't truly understand regulations and he wished for years past when his squaddies had been all clones. Then mostly clones. Then even just another one or two in the company.

The original clones usually liked him less than most of the born-humans or the newer clone series, but Red understood them. It hadn't been their fault that he'd been reconditioned. It hadn't been their fault that he had done something wrong, that he'd been found wanting. But now there weren't any other clones. Not in the company.

He grimaced at the thought of their prisoner. Now there were no other original Kamino clones in the Imperial Army. CT-4646 was the last except for a single company composed entirely of the remaining original Kamino clones and some Spartii stationed on an isolated base in the middle of the Mustafar Rift at the far end of the galaxy. As much to keep them isolated from others, with no temptation or means to desert as to guard and maintain whatever installation was being built there.

And him.

He had applied for a transfer even though he didn't know who the captain was simply because they were clone troopers - vode. The last of the originals. After several rejections, he realized that someone in the company knew him as Slick and he'd checked the rolls. He didn't have to read far. The answer was in the first two names in the 224th. Names he had scratched so long ago on the skin of his inner thigh. He sent one last request to Captain Punch and his second, Lieutenant Sketch.

I've been reconditioned, he put on the transfer justification. I'm not who I was and I want to come home to my brothers. Begging wasn't difficult. Please. He had underscored that word three times. So far, there'd been no response. He wasn't optimistic either. Whatever he had done had been terrible.

The girl smiled at him. It seemed almost genuine and Red gave her a terse nod of his head in acknowledgement then turned to Fero. "Time to go."

The girl flinched.

"He's my minder," sneered Fero, as he gestured at the other stormtrooper. "He keeps me alive so he can torture me with military minutia and irrelevant history." He turned back to Redemption and let both the insult and the volume of his voice drop. "Give me a moment, Red."

Fero liked to pretend he outranked everyone else, especially in front of pretty girls. Red didn't really care. He shrugged and took a defensive position by the ramp entry.

The civilian girl looked at him again, her tongue slightly touching her upper lip in thought. She carried herself well and he'd seen the Wroonian grab her arm only to receive a strike to the solar plexus. He'd been angry and didn't seem to realize the strike could have been a lot more painful and damaging than the mere bruise she'd likely given him. Somewhere, she'd been well-trained.

"Fero has a girl in every port, doesn't he?" She aimed the question at him, her head tilted slightly.

"Four or five," Red replied uninterested as he scanned the docks. Activity seemed normal for this time of day in a market. But, for him, 'normal' was always an iffy call and so he watched.

"Hey!"

The girl laughed lightly. "It's not a big secret, Fero." She shrugged with a coquettish tilt of her head. "You're just that kind of guy." The girl gestured to Red. "I think I might like him better. I bet he doesn't have a girl in every port."

She wasn't serious. For the sake of survival, Redemption had become good at reading gestures and nuances of born-human behavior. This was just a game, one of the more common flirting socio-sexual games. She wasn't serious and neither, really, was Fero though that would change if he thought he had a chance with this pretty a girl.

Red sighed and looked back towards their transport. They'd be putting Jester in lockup. A few minutes delay wouldn't hurt and it would put Fero in a good mood. Good enough for him to stay in the mess for a while boasting of a new conquest, even if she wasn't, and give Red the solitary privacy of their shared room for a few hours as he mourned what he had and hadn't done.

Fero snorted. "Of course not. He's just an old clone. He doesn't go out to the bars on days off." Fero stared at the ceiling and gestured widely. "He doesn't even have days off. He volunteers for extra duty." Fero laughed. "He's never even had a girl."

"I wasn't assigned one," Red shrugged and glanced at Fero.

"Oh, I definitely like him better." She fluttered her eyelashes extravagantly and Red gave a tired, crooked smile beneath his helmet. It was all so obviously just fun for her. She'd probably never been exposed to hardship or hate.

She gave another little coquettish toss of her hair and he caught sight of a small, shiny scar on her forehead that curved into her temple. Red catalogued it with accuracy born of long experience. Maybe she hadn't known hardship or hate but she had known danger. He sighed. Probably a rebel. But today, with the capture of Jester and still no response from Punch and Sketch that he would be given a chance… he really didn't care about anything except curling up in his bunk facing the wall and trying to forget everything that had happened since his reconditioning. And, maybe, recall some tiny bit of information from before. A smile, a grin, a laugh. Maybe a voice or even the whisper of a name.

Fero laughed, more lightly and honestly this time at her repartee. The civilian smiled as she moved next to Red, her arm curling around his. It wasn't the one with the blaster and he was glad about that. He would have had to do something that would spoil the mood if she got near his blaster. She was good at hand-to-hand and he'd have to hurt her.

Even Fero was playacting to some extent now, exaggerating about how archaic Red was. Red even felt like, maybe - just a little maybe, he'd make a joke about it also. Simply to fit in with Fero. At least for a while.

Then he straightened, realizing he was supposed to remain serious and that's what made their flirting so funny. He relaxed and pushed this new information back into his head to go over later. It didn't seem new, simply forgotten. As he'd forgotten so much.

With a sigh, Red turned back to the docks to see one of the stormtroopers at the entry to the cruiser fall to the deck. "Fero," he snapped. Then gestured forward as Jester, shackles dangling from one wrist, attacked the second guard. "I've got this nest." Sniper's nest, he meant though he wouldn't say that in front of a civilian.

Fero ran down the dock in an attempt to block Jester's escape from the west side of the market.

For a moment there was a frisson of pride in Red as Jester turned east, so the stormtroopers would be firing into the blinding sun. Jester was one of the original clones - the best of the Fett template. Then he tightened his lips and began setting up the shot in case the stormies couldn't catch Jester.

And maybe, even if they could.