He and she, two different people

With two separate lives

Then you put the two together

And you get a spectacular surprise

'Cause one can teach the other one

What she doesn't know

While still the other fills a place inside

He never knew had room to grow

"You'll excuse me," her voice shook slightly but she cleared her throat and continued, "but I haven't actually had my lunch yet."

The fruit seller reached under the counter and brought out a small but very sharp looking knife. She set it in front of her so they could all see it and then selected one of the shuuras that had recently been delivered to her stall.

She polished the skin of the fruit against the fabric of her tunic, took up the knife to make the first cut in its flesh and then looked Hunter in the eye without a hint of trepidation. "So you're not here for Gerrera, then why are you here and why does it involve me?"

Hunter, whom she had obviously sized up as the commanding officer even without visible rank insignia, threw a glance at Tech who was usually the spokesman.

Tech shrugged and suppressed a smile, letting his brother decide how much was prudent to share with this relative stranger. Meanwhile she remained seated, a veritable queen on her throne surveying her domain, as she cut a slice of the fruit and placed it between her lips.

So Hunter bumbled through an explanation about how they were on a mission to root out an organization that was believed to be participating in illegal activity.

While he spoke the girl kept her eyes on the shuura she was cutting, but rather than take the next slice for herself, she held it out to Omega.

Omega's hand shot right out but before she took hold of the thing she thought better and looked back for permission. Echo gave her a nod. It wasn't likely to be poisoned since the fruit seller herself had just eaten a slice.

So Omega took the piece with a nod of thanks and mmmmm'ed in appreciation when she popped it into her mouth.

The young woman's smile melted immediately when she turned back to Hunter's grumble of impatience. "Investigating illegal activity sounds more like something that would be in the jurisdiction of the Imperial police." She proved that she had still been attending to his speech.

"We're not working for the Empire." Omega held out her hand for a second slice of fruit as it was offered but Wrecker nudged her shoulder so she passed it back to him and grinned a request for a third from the giver. "It's a mission from a friend who thinks they might be cutting in on their profits."

The fruit seller looked up in surprise and caught more than one wince in response to the excess of information. She pondered, tossing another whole fruit and catching it with her left hand, once, twice and then batting it with her right elbow directly towards Wrecker who caught the thing and stared at it like it might be a thermal detonator.

After a moment he smiled, "thanks!" and bit into the gift.

"You're welcome," the young woman acknowledged and then she got down to business, folding her hands on the counter before her.

"What about my profits?" she asked. "I'm losing credits having you all stand there so that paying customers can't get to the merchandise. Not to mention your little sister is likely to eat me out of my entire stock."

"How did you know they were my brothers?" Omega asked while blithely taking another proffered shuura.

"I know the look," the young woman whispered conspiratorially. "I had four big brothers looking out for me when I was your age too." There was something bittersweet about her smile and the way she said the word 'had' and it was clear that Omega's involvement was the only reason she was even considering working with them.

"Then you don't mind that the Empire might be after us?" Omega whispered back, cradling the shuura in her hands as if it might be taken away.

"You mentioned Saw Gerrera," Hunter questioned.

"I was never… involved with him," she shook her head. "I don't approve of his methods. But I don't care for the way his people were… disposed of either." The young woman stared at them defiantly.

…

Kriff! What was Genna getting herself into? And who did she think she was fooling with her little paring knife? They were clones, highly trained killers! Though these particular clones were like nothing she had seen on the propaganda holos the Separatists fed them when they were in control of the planet, even before Aargonar. There was the little girl and there was the way the one with the goggles looked at her that made her stomach flutter.

That was ridiculous. She did not moon over boys like a school girl even when she was a school girl.

She had blustered her way through the conversation thus far. It was like psyching out an opponent at the kickoff of a limmie match. That she could do. Her brothers had taught her well.

And then Goggles spoke again and some of her resolve slipped. "There must be something we can do to return the favor of allowing us to use your premises."

What could they do for her, take vengeance on her enemies? She didn't have many of those. There were a few beings she had thought of as friends who hadn't bothered to step up when her whole world had crashed down at her feet but she didn't really think that was quite deserving of clone justice.

She chuckled nervously and held up her datapad, "This thing's been busted for months. One of you wouldn't possibly know anything about tech?"

The Gentle Giant guffawed, "That's literally his name!" He pointed and again she found herself looking into those goggle-framed brown eyes.

"Your name is Tech?" Why hadn't she thought to ask before now?

He nodded.

And then the little girl was introducing the rest of them so Genna had to pay attention because her accent could sometimes be hard to decipher. "That's Hanta and Icko and Rickah and I'm Omeegah!"

Genna thought she understood the brothers' names but she was at a complete loss for the girl's. "Megan?" she attempted.

"It's Omega," supplied Tech but he did so in such a convincing approximation of her own dialect, Onderonian but with a lilt of Concordian Mando'a left over from her childhood, that it might have been Ret explaining the pronunciation.

She stared at him.

"He's good with languages, too, our Tech," said the one Omega had called… Echo?

"And what's your name?" Tech asked.

"Genet… I, well, I mean… I'm called Genna."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Genna."

He held out his hand and like a complete di'kut she offered the datapad when he had obviously wanted to shake her hand like a normal human being. As she was thinking this she fumbled the device, lost her grip on it and watched with horror as it clattered to the pavement in front of her counter.

Immediately a holo image materialized and they all stared at it as Tech bent to retrieve the datapad for her. The recording was of the final seconds of a limmie match and the player that was featured was a young woman with short dark hair who delivered a spectacular game winning kick into the goal. Her teammates and watchers from the stands came to surround her and lift her up onto their shoulders before the image went dark once again.

"Was that you?" Omega asked in awe.

"Well, I don't have a clone." Embarrassed, Genna tried to keep her voice steady as she reached out to take back the device and hugged it to her chest. "You see it's painfully slow booting up sometimes and other times it just spews out old random data."

"I'd be glad to repair it for you," Tech offered.

"Good." Hunter (it was a good name for him, like an anooba on the scent) sought to reassert his dominance. "Tech, you can stay here and set up our equipment and the rest of us will widen our search and check out a few more of those areas that we discussed earlier." He eyed Genna suspiciously as if he didn't want to say too much in front of her and she might already have heard more than she should.

She grumbled under her breath, "I'm so sorry my location doesn't give you a better view of the whole kriffing planet."

"What?" Hunter sneered. The big guy choked on his shuura. The one in the hood barked a laugh. Tech just smiled at her, in admiration, she thought.

She had wanted to follow up the statement with a rude hand gesture but even though she couldn't see any of the weapons she was sure their superior officer was carrying, he could no doubt still carve her into tiny pieces with her own fruit knife.

And then Omega demanded her attention once again. "Will you teach me to play limmie like in that holo? Later, I mean, once we've finished our mission."

Genna didn't know what to say. She hated to dash the kid's hopes.

"Come on, Omega." Hunter and the others were already moving away and he expected her to follow orders.

But Omega turned back to her once more. "And you can call me, 'Meg' if you like, since we're supposed to be undercover."

Genna couldn't help but smile. "Did you know there was a famous Onderonian pirate named Mhaegan? That's who you reminded me of."

"Will you tell me all about her later?" Omega grinned excitedly.

Genna nodded and watched her disappear into the crowd.

…

From this vantage point Tech could observe Genna without getting in her way or that of her customers. He was pretending to do some small repair to the awning that stretched over her counter and gave her and her produce a bit of shade; while in reality he was placing the devices that would allow him and his brothers to keep an eye on the entrances to the marketplace.

The job itself was one that shouldn't have taken more than a few standard minutes but it did offer Tech the opportunity to study the fruit seller in her natural habitat. She went about her business knowledgeably, with humor and kindness while not allowing anyone to cheat her or take advantage.

Occasionally she got frustrated with the function of the datapad he had promised to fix for her but he was kind of thinking of putting that off as well. She was cute when she was angry.

There was something that was bothering him though and he couldn't figure it out. Here was a young woman who was so graceful and athletic in that holo that had accidentally appeared from her device. He half wanted to get his hands on that datapad again just so he could review it. The thing was, all day, he'd hardly seen her change position.

She sat behind her counter and did her job. She didn't even get up to use the fresher that he had seen. Maybe she was worried about leaving the counter alone with a stranger? That was possible, he supposed.

She glanced up at him and away again. "Are you nearly done with that? You're starting to attract attention."

Honestly he hadn't noticed anyone else taking any interest in him at all other than Genna herself occasionally looking up to check his progress, when she thought he wasn't looking. Her cheeks reddened any time she thought he might have caught her at it. That might have been another reason he was stretching out the job that he should have finished quite a while ago.

It wasn't really posturing for her benefit when he jumped down from the crate on which he'd been standing and stretched before he made his way behind the counter to see of what use he could be to her.

Genna backed up a little to make room for him in the cramped space. No, she didn't just back up. She hovered her chair back half a meter. That's what he had been missing. She hadn't changed position all afternoon because she was unable to stand up out of the mobility unit.

He was temporarily lost for words and she obviously knew he had just realized the truth. She must have had to deal with people's reactions all the time and she tried to make light of it.

"I guess I'll have to break it to Meg why I can't teach her those limmie moves."

For a moment Tech had to remember who 'Meg' was and then he smiled in a way that he hoped didn't come across as pitying. "She'll understand. You can just show her that holo again and give her a play by play."

Genna nodded and held out the device. "Most of the regulars have already come by so it's probably safe for you to take a look at this now."

He knew how important the data on this unit must be to her livelihood and he didn't take that lightly. "It's probably just an extraneous file that's over-taxing the system. I'll do a sweep of the hard drive for…"

She was smiling at him. "Just try not to lose any of my accounting information or contacts. I'd be lost without those."

"And your personal holos and things. I'm sure there are saved memories that you'd like to keep." He was glad to have the physical object in his hands to focus on now. This was what he knew, his comfort zone. He let the columns of digits stream over his consciousness while he attempted to keep up a conversation.

"When you gave your name, the first thing you said was 'Genet'. That's Mando'a for 'grey' if I'm not mistaken." Of course he wasn't.

"Yes, I haven't been called that in years," she admitted. "Genna sounded more Onderonian when I started school here."

"So you were born on Mandalore, or was it one of the other planets in the system?" He looked up from the screen and took in once again her blue eyes and mostly blonde hair down to the end, where it turned dark, that she was now twirling between her fingers, absently.

"My brothers and I came from Manda'yaim but I've lived here in the city most of my life."

He wanted to ask about her brothers, and about the injury that had put her in that chair, and why nothing had been done about it when there were surgeons in the galaxy who were perfectly capable of reversing such a condition or at the very least implanting some sort of mechanical component that would allow her to walk again.

" Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. " Tech pronounced carefully, inserting just a touch of the Concordian inflection that he had noticed in her own speaking voice.

"You speak Mando'a ," she laughed. "I'm not even completely sure what you just said."

"I believe it means, Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger ."

"Your brother, Echo?" she asked, to which he nodded. "He said you were good at languages. How many do you speak?"

"I am fluent in one thousand, one hundred thirty-eight forms of communication."

She gawked at him and then smirked. "Is one of them protocol droid?"

He smiled back at her. "I am able to reprogram them, so I suppose it is."

"I think I may have an idea of something else you can do for me to repay for using this place for your mission."

Tech hoped that whatever this association was between them, it wasn't just about the mission. "Anything," he vowed.