I'm the kinda girl that hangs with the guys
Like a fly on the wall with my secret eyes
And if you had enough you'll get the pass
And you can tell your friends how you made it back
"Good morning, cyar'ika ."
Genna rolled toward the voice with a mumbled, "morning." She didn't really want to wake up.
"Did you sleep well?" The owner of the voice kissed her forehead.
"The most gorgeous sleep that I've ever had."
"Happy Birthday." His mouth found hers before she could respond to that and then pulling his body closer to hers seemed much more important.
Eventually her eyelids fluttered open and she had to disengage for a breath of air. "Hi," she grinned sleepily at him. "Am I dreaming?"
His smile was more dazzling than the sunlight that was streaming through her bedroom window. "You are not."
"I had completely forgotten what day it was. How did you know?"
"I took the liberty of reading your bio on the University's holonet site after watching the recording of your last game." He adjusted his goggles and then ran his fingers through her sleep tangled hair.
"Well, I can't think of a nicer way to wake up on my birthday or any day at all."
"And now it's time for you to get up and get dressed so that you can get your day started."
"Aww," she pouted. "And here I was thinking we could just lay around in bed all day and I could let you have your way with me."
Tech kissed her again and she almost thought he might take her up on the idea. "While that is a very tempting proposition, and I will keep it in mind for a later occasion, I think you will also enjoy what I have planned for you this morning."
"How did you ever have time to plan any-" she glanced over at the chrono on the table and swore, "Osik, you've let me sleep half the day away!" But she held on to him.
"You were the one who just suggested staying in bed all day."
"But what about the orchard and the market?" Genna asked. She wasn't rushing to hop into her chair and see to these things herself. She had a feeling he had already put a great deal of thought into this plan of his; she was just curious as to what it might involve.
"Mohan agreed to transport the mornings' produce and stay to watch over the market stall."
"And if he needs to see to customers who only speak Basic?"
"Your neighbor in the stall next to yours from whom we purchased the cheese yesterday evening agreed to assist him with transactions."
Tech started to get up but Genna held him there for a moment longer. She traced the skull and the two Aurebesh '9's on his chest with her finger and bit her lip enjoying his shudder of pleasure in reaction to her touch.
"Does my birthday surprise involve going to get a matching tattoo?"
He chuckled. "I might have to add that to our schedule for the day."
He pressed against her with one more kiss before lifting himself from her bed and leaving her practically panting with the desire for more.
"You should get dressed," he ordered from her doorway and that meant he had to as well.
As much as she would have rather just lay there and stare at his lovely body she sighed, "If you look in the other bedrooms I'm sure you can find something of my brothers' that will fit you."
He nodded and then left to give her privacy to do her own preparations for the day.
…
The burgundy tunic had belonged to Saviin or maybe Kebiin, she couldn't remember now. The black trousers however had to have been Ret's. He had been the tallest of her brothers so it would stand to reason that his pants were the only ones that would cover Tech's ankles.
"Is this acceptable?" He asked after she had been staring at him silently for a little too long.
" Elek ." Genna smiled. "You look lovely."
He bent down to kiss her and as he stood up straight again noticed that there were several centimeters missing from her dalgotail. "You've had a hair cut, too."
"I decided that color wasn't for me anymore."
" Gar Mesh'la. "
" Vor entye ." At least she knew the proper way to respond to his complement.
Then she blinked, gave a little cough, and gestured back at her front door. "I'll just lock up and we can be going. Where are we going, by the way?"
"I could be happy anywhere with you."
She simpered and teased, "That wasn't exactly an answer to my question."
Tech took her hand to lead her. "You'll just have to be surprised."
"Will your brothers be wherever it is we're going?"
"Yes and Omega," he answered, for the first time sounding a trifle unsure. "Is that disagreeable to you?"
"Well, no not exactly, although I do enjoy the time we're able to spend just you and me."
"So do I," Tech interjected.
She squeezed his hand. "I just don't think Hunter likes me very much. Or maybe he still thinks I'm somehow involved in this thing you're investigating."
…
"No, I don't like her very much. I'm not convinced that she's not somehow involved in this Mollymauk thing." Hunter looked around at the party decorations that had been hastily put up around the private dining room that Tech had rented on the main floor of the fancy hotel.
"Why don't you like her?" Omega asked. "Tech likes her and he's generally a good judge of character."
"That's why I'm here to make sure he isn't under the spell of some... Sidhe."
"What's a Sidhe?"
"It's a mythological trickster and it's supposedly the name of one of the operatives working with Mollymauk."
He turned on Echo. "You saw it, didn't you, before we split up last night? That crate the subject was moving said the contents were supposed to be muja berries and the shipping address was to be delivered into care of one Miss Genna Carid."
Echo rolled his eyes but Omega caught a cautious glance in her direction first. "We saw that pink haired woman on the surveillance vid hanging around the marketplace. She might have swiped the crate if she is associated with the Mollymauks. That's why I suggested that we split up so I could follow her."
"And did you catch up to her and find out where she was going?"
"No I- I lost her when I ran into Omega and Wrecker by the harbor."
"By the harbor?" Hunter mused, "so she might have been there about a shipment."
"I can't confirm that." Echo was that close to coming clean about everything they had discovered this far.
Hunter paced and grasped at another straw. "Well what about that painting they were moving? You saw that, didn't you? You have to admit it bore a striking resemblance…"
"The resemblance in a random painting was probably a coincidence." Echo scoffed. "Genna was a small-time celebrity when she played limmie for the university. Her image might have been copied from any number of promotional holos."
"One of the paintings looked like Genna?" Omega gasped.
She had been trying to think of a distraction to get them off topic but just then Wrecker made that unnecessary. "They're coming up the road now," he called from the window where he had been watching. "Good! Now we can have cake!"
"Not until we sing the song and she blows out the candles like they do in the holos!" Omega instructed.
Since Tech had proposed the birthday party earlier that morning, Omega had been all in with the idea and wanted everything to be just like the vids she had seen. "When they come in we all shout, 'Surprise'!
Echo and Wrecker nodded, but Hunter just shook his head.
…
"This is where you're taking me?" Genna looked up at the grandiose facade of the new hotel. The building cut a new shape into the skyline of the city center.
"You said the food at the restaurant was supposed to be incredible but that you had never had the opportunity to sample it's menu."
"So not upstairs to the honeymoon suite."
Tech shot her a look of surprise that melted into a rather lusty grin. "Perhaps I'll have to add that to the itinerary after the trip to the tattoo parlor."
Her breath caught and she turned her attention back toward the entrance. "But for now we're just here for a birthday dinner with your family?" She rambled, "Someone once sent a droid to the fruit stall to fetch a few fresh jogans to top a cake for a party they were catering so I guess someone here must have decent taste."
She had never been inside before today. Even the lobby was quite something to behold. "I went on a tour of the palace once for school." She stared around in awe. "I don't remember it being this nice."
Tech took up the steering of her hoverchair and led her past a magnificent fireplace that he could have stood up in and a fountain where the spouting water danced over colored lights and splashed musically into pools and channels that flowed around the room and under bridges. He pushed her right past the main entrance to the restaurant.
"But I thought you said…" She pointed back toward the eating establishment.
"Our destination is just a little ahead on your left," he explained.
When they were directly in front of the door it slid open and Meg's voice called out, "One, two, three…" and the rest of them joined her for, "Surprise!"
Flimzi streamers had been hung about on everything that was standing still and there was a cake on the long table in the center of the room and Wrecker and Meg came at once to usher her the rest of the way in with excited hugs.
"You didn't have to do all this," Genna couldn't stop herself from laughing.
Meg hopped up and down and clapped her hands. "We wanted to!"
Tech slipped away from her for a moment and went to a side table where Echo was fiddling with an audio transmitter. "You got the playlist I sent to you?"
"Yes, I was just waiting for the two of you to arrive to start it."
When the music began to play it was the rhythmic beat of one of her favorite songs but Tech looked to her for approval. "I copied the selections from your datapad."
"That's great!" She still couldn't quite believe he had done all this.
And then with that beaming smile that she had come to think belonged to her alone, Tech crossed the room again and dropped before her on one knee. "May I have this dance?"
She wasn't sure how to respond other than a small nod before he was up on his feet again and he swept her out of the chair and into his arms whirling her around in time to the music.
His breath tickled her ear. "So do you like your surprise?"
"Well, generally I don't like surprises," she admitted, biting her lip. "But this one…"
He had slowed in their motion a bit.
"This one…" she went on, "sort of makes me feel like part of a family again."
He hugged her tighter and spun around faster and she whooped in exhilaration.
Wrecker was gazing longingly at the cake until Omega took his hand and bowed and pulled him towards the makeshift dance floor. In another moment they were holding both hands and she was standing on his shoes as he clopped along to the beat.
And then Echo who had been leaning against the table tapping his foot pushed off and broke out into a series of movements that would have been commonplace in any one of the clubs Genna used to frequent in her university days.
She threw back her head and laughed. "I'm going to have to ask him where he got those prosthetics."
Hunter may have still been standing apart from the rest of them brooding but it hardly mattered.
"Is that your birthday wish?" Tech whispered in her ear again, stealing back her attention from the others.
She placed her hand on his chest over the spot where she had discovered his tattoo the evening before. "Maybe I was still hoping for a matching bit of ink."
His gaze flitted down to her lips and she was sure he wanted to kiss her but wasn't sure about showing affection in front of his family.
" Mhi shek'eta-she'cu ," she pronounced softly.
He stared at her in wonder.
Genna giggled, "If I tell you my birthday wish it won't come true and besides I don't get to make my wish until I blow out the candles on my cake."
"Then it seems it's time that we afforded you that opportunity." He carried her not towards her hoverchair but instead set her at the head of the table in the place of honor and then gestured toward Echo to turn down the volume on the audio amplifier.
The others gathered around, Wrecker lit the candles, and then they all struggled through a chorus of the birthday song that was known galaxy wide, though she guessed from their difficulty that these five had never really had the chance to sing it before.
Four, rather; you wouldn't catch Hunter singing for the likes of her. The others though had surprisingly good voices once they got into it and settled on a key.
Genna closed her eyes when they had finished and then opened them again to blow out the candles. Tech caught her gaze above the dancing flames and studied her. Maybe he was trying to guess her wish. Was it obvious that she just would like for things to stay as they were? Now they were together and all too soon their mission would be over or they'd be called away for something more important or profitable.
They cheered when the flames had been extinguished and the cake was whisked away to be cut and plated.
Tech sat next to her and held her hand until a plate and fork were set before her and Omega plopped down on her other side with a grin.
"What did you wish for, Genna?" The little girl asked.
She cut off a bite sized portion of the cake with her fork while she pondered the question. "What more could I wish for than being with all of you right here and now?"
"You don't truly believe that this is all there is?" Tech was beaming again. He couldn't possibly have another surprise for her. She was still wondering how he had managed to put all this together on such short notice.
Genna glanced around at the others to see if they were in on this new development as well but they seemed just as baffled. Was he about to announce in front of the rest of them what they had joked about? The tattoo or, her heart thudded and she felt her face flush, the room upstairs?
Tech squeezed her hand tightly and his expression grew more serious as if he were making a vow. "When we finish this mission, I'm going to speak with our patroness. She has contacts all over the galaxy and surely among them is a surgeon, a being with the capability to restore your full mobility. You will dance again, Genna. I promise you that."
She registered the others' exclamations over the pronouncement but she didn't take her eyes from his. "Tech," she stammered. "I would have to leave Onderon. I have responsibilities, a business to run."
"It would only be for a little while," he explained, kneeling down beside her. "And then if you wanted to return here you would still have your home, the orchard, everything waiting for you."
"But this isn't just an afternoon off for a limmie game, or a day off for a birthday party." She realized she still had her cake fork in her hand and set it on her plate. "There would be travel for the surgery itself and then some kind of rehab…"
It wasn't as if she hadn't looked into the possibility. Besides the cost involved which would be considerable, she would be out of work for all that time and there were bills to pay.
"When I asked Mohan to watch over the stall today," Tech's tone became more clipped. He hadn't expected her to put up such an opposition to his suggestion. "He has family who also wish to emigrate from Kiros, two nieces in particular who already speak basic and can make the trip in the next…"
"CT - nine nine oh two!"
Both of them turned to face Hunter's voice but Tech also stood to attention. "Yes, Sergeant."
"A word," Hunter ordered through gritted teeth.
Before he obeyed however, Tech bent and kissed Genna's cheek. "We will discuss it further, cyar'ika. " he gave her a contrite smile. " Mhi shek'eta-she'cu. "
She nodded and watched him cross the room towards his brother.
"What did those words mean?"
Genna jumped. She had almost forgotten that Omega was still seated on her other side. The child was grinning around a mouthful of cake and Genna also remembered that her own slice was still before her untried. "Oh it's umm," she picked up her fork. "Tech's teaching me Mando'a. It means… we are ninety-nine."
"Like the squad!" Omega at least seemed enormously pleased that Genna was now considered to be among their number. "Not your age because I'm sure it's not your ninety-ninth birthday."
Genna laughed. "No, not hardly." She finally took that bite of cake and found it to be not bad at all.
"I think it was very sweet of him to offer to get Cid to find a surgeon to fix your legs."
"It was." Genna agreed, now a little sorry that she had spurned his gift. "Your brother can't help but try to fix things that are broken, can he?"
She rubbed at a phantom ache in one of her legs and remembered that she wasn't in her own hover chair. When she glanced across the room and saw Hunter lecturing Tech, she wished she could go over and speak up for him but she had no way to get there.
He seemed to notice her looking and then called over, "Genna, did you ever model for an artist's painting?"
Where had that question come from? She answered honestly. "When I was a student at the university I needed some extra credits so I posed for an art class once."
All five of them stared at her.
"I had to go back the next day and explain that they couldn't display any of the images. I didn't know there was some rule that members of the limmie team weren't supposed to… expose themselves."
Tech raised an eyebrow at her and she almost laughed. "I suppose since I'm not on the team anymore it hardly matters."
He and Hunter went back to their discussion and Genna went back to her cake with a smirk. Yes, she supposed Tech wouldn't mind seeing a copy of that image if it had indeed resurfaced after all this time.
"So is this really the first birthday party you've ever attended?" She asked Omega, noticing that Wrecker was still remaining close to the cake and that over half of the dessert had already been consumed.
"None of us have birthdays, since we weren't technically born." Omega shrugged. "But I remember the date when I saw all of them extracted from their pods so I suppose we could celebrate that."
Genna choked, and recovered slightly. "You mean you were there. You're older than they are."
"Mmm-hmm." The little girl nodded. "Their growth was accelerated like the majority of the rest of the clones who were bred to go into battle. Mine wasn't."
Kriff! Her shock must have been evident.
"But they're all fully mature," Omega tried to reassure her. "Beings mature at different rates all over the galaxy. I heard about one sort that stay in the toddler stage for decades."
Well thank Manda for that! At least she wasn't dating a literal toddler. She tried to focus again on what Omega was saying.
"I'm just glad I found them again after the Empire took over and they came back to Kamino to get me after they went on that first mission to Onderon."
Genna's blood suddenly ran cold. "First mission to Onderon? They were sent here before, by the Empire?"
"Yeah, I thought you knew about Saw Gerrera. You mentioned him when we first arrived."
Genna slammed her hand down on the arm of her chair but there were no controls there to enable her escape.
"Are you okay?" Omega asked.
"Y-yes." Genna looked around, frantically. "I just need my chair so I can get to the 'fresher."
"I'll get it for you."
She couldn't have been more glad that the little girl hopped right up and went to do just that. Genna couldn't imagine having to ask one of these clones to carry her back to her only means of independence.
"Thank you." She awkwardly transferred herself from one seat to the other.
"Would you like me to go with you?"
"No." Genna attempted a normal smile. "Go have another piece of cake before Wrecker finishes it off."
"Okay," Omega headed in that direction but she looked back to see Genna leave the room as quickly as the hoverchair would take her.
…
Kriff! Kriff! Kriff! What was she supposed to do now? She had to get away but they knew where she worked, where she lived! She had even shared her bed last night!
Her vision was starting to blur and she realized that hot tears were filling her eyes and beginning to spill down her cheeks.
She heard someone calling her name. The voice was familiar but it wasn't one of the clones and then Nathon and his blonde girlfriend from the evening before at the stadium were squatting down on either side of her chair. They must have been staying at the hotel and recognized her as she sat there blubbering in the lobby. "Genna, what's wrong? Is it your boyfriend?"
"He's not my…" she shook her head violently. "He and his squad, they killed Ret."