There's a knock on my door
But I'm not gonna open it
I'm gonna close my eyes
And maybe it will go away
I want a platinum blonde life
So I keep bleaching out the colors
Where did my lamb go?
I wish he could stay
I feel as empty as a widow
I'm gonna sleep it all away
Echo pushed the steaming mug across the table towards her. It smelled bright and citrusy.
"It's shig, a sort of Mandalorian tea."
Riyo took a sip and coughed. It had a kick to it.
"I added a bit of tihaar to it, alcohol, I thought it might help calm your nerves. I hope that's alright."
She took another sip and nodded. "It's just the right thing."
Rex had said they could stay at the garage for as long as they liked. He had things he needed to do but Echo hadn't been given an assignment yet and Riyo wasn't ready to go back to the senate district where everyone was cheering her brilliant achievement of exposing Rampart's treachery.
"I just can't stop thinking about those poor soldiers who are being blamed for following his orders."
Echo lifted his own mug in agreement and took a drink.
"You know, Nova told me once about a battle." She went on wistfully, "It was on Umbara I think. And the troopers were fooled into believing that the enemy had stolen their armor. But they hadn't." Her voice broke. "They were firing on their own brothers. Nova wasn't there but he said the very idea of it gave him nightmares. The thought of lifting off a helmet and seeing his own face looking back at him."
Echo hadn't been there either, though he had heard about it, and shuddered. Rex had been there, and Fives.
"He said," she continued. "He said that he was glad that he was stationed on Coruscant where something like that would never happen but…"
Riyo wiped a tear from her cheek and Echo pulled his chair closer to hers. He laid his good hand on top of hers and she clasped it.
"Then," she sniffed. "There was a night when he was called away to hunt down an arc trooper who they said had attacked the Chancellor. Nova didn't pull the trigger himself, the commander had the shot, but he said they all felt responsible. They had all been given the order to take him out."
Suddenly, she looked up at him, blinking. "Rex was there."
Echo nodded and cleared his throat. "He told me about it. The Arc trooper, Fives, he - he was my brother. We were from the same squad, the only two left."
"I'm so sorry." She reached up and touched his face.
"I don't think I ever met your Nova. I mean we weren't officially introduced. Fox and Thorn we knew. We traded insults with them when we were here on Coruscant before we flew off on the Citadel mission. Told them they had nice cushy Capitol jobs while we were out fighting the real war. That was right before…" He motioned to his cybernetic attachments with his prosthetic arm.
She traced the edge of his headgear where it met with his skin with one narrow blue finger and then she drew his face closer and kissed him.
He must have been emboldened by the tihaar because he deepened the kiss and pulled the senator onto his lap.
She gasped. "Is there somewhere we could…" She didn't finish but blushed a pretty shade of violet.
"One of those doors probably leads to a bunk room. And…" he added before she could ask. "I do still possess all the proper equipment."
The two of them scrambled from the table and found a small room that housed a bed and little else and closed the door behind them.
Echo knew they probably shouldn't be doing this but he wasn't sure he had the willpower to stop. What they were doing felt so amazing, but he had to make sure she understood so he managed to hold himself completely still.
"Riyo. You know that… I'm not him. I'm not Nova, we're not interchangeable."
"I know," she breathed, her golden eyes looking deep into his.
"Then say it." He buried his face into the side of her neck just below her ear. "Say my name."
"Echo."
He growled in response, coming undone at the sound of her voice.
"Echo," she moaned again.
He didn't really know what he was doing but his instincts must have been right on target because then she nearly screamed, "Echo!"
…
"Havoc-4, this is Havoc-5. Do you copy? Echo? Are you there?" Omega tried desperately to make the connection while they trudged through the canyon.
Hunter informed her gently, "He's too long-range. Echo won't pick up our signal."
"Especially since he disabled his communication device," Tech added with more spite.
"What? Why?" Omega cried.
"I assume he's on a sensitive mission." A mission that may very well involve informing the woman he loved that she was free from the vows they had spoken. Tech was aware he was being peevish. But maybe they could cut him some slack.
…
Echo and Riyo had spent the night in a pleasurable daze, a daze which came to a screeching halt when Rex found them the next morning with only the sheets to protect their modesty.
"Ahsoka commed," he said without preamble. "Mollymauk opened the crate."
"Not the crate with the defecting bomber pilot."
"That one. He's fine, but Mollymauk is furious and we know how she can get. If we're going to talk to her, we need to do it now."
"Do you want me to prep the ship?"
"No, I want you to go on the mission. You're the one with a previous introduction to Mollymauk." Rex tossed Echo his pants on the way out.
And so here he was, standing in Mollymauk's office next to the holograms of the clone network's leaders. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. If the clone network joined forces with natborn defections, he would be working closely with Riyo…
"So, you're going to talk to me face to face instead of stuffing unconscious defectors into crates?" Dalla asked, her eyebrow raised at Echo and the holographic forms of Rex and Senator Organa. "Good to know I'm appreciated around here."
"We need your help," Echo said. "Our clone network is growing, but we can only do so much. If we're going to reach everyone who needs help."
"And by everyone, you mean the conscripts whose defection percentage is almost double that of clones?"
"Triple," Organa corrected her. "They defect at nearly triple the rate, and their extractions tend to be even more dangerous. They come from better equipped facilities, they have families—."
"And they don't trust clones." Rex said. "When I spoke to Jon Vander, he almost shot me before Ahsoka stepped in."
"You think they'll trust me."
"You have an uncanny ability to move things around under the Empire's nose," Organa said.
"I'm already running an entire network!" Dalla gestured to the haphazard piles of datapads and flimsiwork surrounding her. "This is a bigger problem than one person. I can't possibly pay for your rebellion and simultaneously vet and transport multiple defectors, never mind weeding out the spies."
"We don't know who else to ask," Echo admitted.
"Don't suppose you could pay off Cid to do it?"
"I wouldn't trust her with all those lives."
"And yet you trust me." Dalla took a deep breath and then looked directly at Organa's hologram. "If I do this, then I'm in charge of it. All the handlers report to me, and I report to no one. I decide who we transport, where we transport, everything. The credit stops with me. Agreed?"
Organa nodded. "I can help you get started."
"Much appreciated." Dalla nodded and they knew the conversation was over.
"Thank you," Echo said when the holos were put away.
He still had questions that didn't directly pertain to their official discussion but Dalla spoke first. "So you're losing your faith in Cid?"
"The squad are still working with her but the jobs are not quite as lucrative as anyone would like."
"Phee said as much." Dalla drummed her fingers against the top of her desk.
"So, she does work for you?"
"Not directly," she shook her head. "We've never met face to face but we both are working towards the good of Onderon…"
"Tech figured that was the case." He didn't really expect her to give him any more information than that.
Then again maybe she was hoping that by doling out these small bits of intelligence that he might reciprocate by offering her some of what he had been able to gather.
She surprised him again when she shrugged and casually remarked, "Phee mentioned something about Scaleback getting her claws on an old Ipsium mine."
Echo frowned. "If she did, you know more about it than I do."
"It can be dangerous, extracting the stuff, highly volatile, so I've heard. Valuable, undoubtedly, but I wonder if she'd risk sending your boys out for it."
Echo snorted. When had Cid ever cared if someone got hurt in one of her schemes? He wouldn't be surprised at all if that was exactly the mission the squad were given as soon as they left Coruscant.
"Have to make sure Goggles can make it back to his beautiful wife." Dalla gave him her crooked toothed smile.
"Yeah, well, about that," Echo began. He did have a message to deliver.
"I've done my best to keep tabs on her." She informed him. "She's got a new shop just up the road."
"Thank you. If we're done here, I'd appreciate that address."
…
" No can do, fellas. I'm all tied up at the moment. You'll have to figure it out yourselves ."
It was not the response they were hoping for when Tech finally managed to make the long range connection through the abandoned communications array.
Hunter practically growled, "Cid, you sent us on this mission."
" Well, I didn't tell you to get your ship stolen, did I? "
"Cid, we need your help," Omega pleaded, usually that was all it took.
But Tech also felt compelled to remind their patroness, "Just like we helped you regain control of your parlor from Roland Durant, and when we cleared your sizable debt with Millegi…"
" I didn't ask for a recap, Goggles." She groaned . "All right. Give me a few days, and I'll see what I can do ."
"We don't have enough rations to last a few-" Hunter's protestation was cut off by Cid ending the transmission.
Wrecker grumbled, "What do we do now?"
"We'll figure it out like we always do," Omega smiled confidently at Tech.
She was right and he was glad that they had gotten a chance to speak while they were trapped in the mine, not that he had confessed to her the precise reason for his distress.
Now however, as they all looked into the distance, lightning flashed with its accompanying roll of thunder.
"Another storm's coming." Hunter sighed. "We need to find shelter."
As they were reconnoitering for a suitable building that wasn't in too much disrepair, Omega noticed an ancient skiff.
"Do you think this could get us to the next town?" She suggested.
Tech did a cursory examination. "I might be able to get it into working order with some of the other detritus lying around."
"It'll have to wait until morning." Hunter decided for them. "We all could do with a rest and I don't like the look of that storm." He motioned ahead towards a building that looked like it might fit their needs.
Omega obeyed orders but she still asked Tech in a lower voice, "What if we contacted Mollymauk? Surely with the long range transmitter we could get a message to her and then maybe Genna could come along to pick us up!"
"Omega," he stopped walking and adjusted his goggles. "You know that Genna and I instituted plan double zero so that we would not bring attention to her location and put her in danger of discovery by the Empire while we are on the run."
"Yes, but Echo said that the Empire thinks we're dead. And nobody knows we're here but Cid and she can't come so…"
"The situation changed when the Emperor made his declaration about the stormtrooper program." He pushed her forward to get her moving again towards the shelter but she looked up at him while he shunted her along.
"But you love her."
"It is because I love her that I feel the need to let her go."
The wind was picking up now and the thunder and lightning strikes were much closer than before.
"Let her go!?"
Wrecker lifted her bodily from the ground and carried her the rest of the way into the building. "Let who go?" he asked.
Tech opted that it was best to just explain it to them both at the same time. "When we left Echo I asked him to pass along a message if he should run into Genna on his travels that I would allow her to be free from our arrangement and find someone else who might not put her in constant danger."
Wrecker gasped, Omega crossed her arms over her chest giving him a disapproving frown, and Hunter, who Tech had been certain would agree with his motives in this situation, shook his head.
Outside the wind howled and the thunder crashed.
"What?" Tech demanded of them.
"You made vows to her," Hunter reminded him.
"Vows to live as a husband to her which I cannot now perform as we are several parsecs apart and stranded on a hostile planet." He paced the darkened room. "It is not fair for me to force her to wait for a husband who may not ever be able to return."
"You don't know that," Omega insisted.
"Well," Tech threw up his hands in frustration. "Perhaps if we could settle on a perfect tropical island on a planet..."
"With no giant crabs," Omega added.
"Yeah," Wrecker agreed. "Last tropical island we went to had giant man eating crabs."
"Fine. A perfect tropical island, with no giant man eating crabs, on a planet the Empire has never heard of." Tech reached for his datapad on his belt as if he actually meant to do a search. "Do you know the odds that we would find such a place? They are low, very low."
"Still," Hunter advised. "You probably shouldn't have just sent the message along with Echo. She deserves to hear it from you face to face."
It was a cowardly move, now that Tech thought about it. "He may have already had the opportunity to deliver the message."
"Sooo, after the storm we'll try to contact him with the long range array." Omega grinned.
He gave her a noncommittal nod. "It was not a bad idea that you had to try and contact Mollymauk to come and pick us up. We do have other associates who would surely be willing to lend us a hand."
The storm raged all night, but in the morning light they found that the long range communications array had been destroyed. The skiff that Omega had noticed the day before was their only option to get them to the town and find transportation off the planet.
…
Genna screamed as if she had been physically attacked. She hadn't of course but she had been galactically stupid.
She looked at the small print on the back of the box of platinum blonde hair dye that she had chosen to return her vivid pink mistake to its natural shade. There in plain aurebesh, black and white was the warning, "consult a doctor before use if pregnant."
She knew that! In cosmetology school she had been tested on all sorts of toxins that beings of different species and physical conditions should avoid. But she had been so focused on just getting back to some sense of normal that she had completely forgotten.
Maybe this was the "pregnancy brain" that she had heard other women complain of. That and she was just so exhausted. It seemed from the moment she had seen that positive test all of the symptoms had hit her at once.
With another scream of annoyance at her own stupidity she dunked her head under the running faucet and scrubbed away at whatever poisons may even now be seeping into her bloodstream to infect her unborn child.
A moment later she raised her head, dripping from the sink. Was that a knock at the door? She wasn't expecting anyone. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it turban-like around her cranium.
Whoever it was would just have to be disappointed. She wasn't taking any appointments today. She had drawn the curtains and locked the door and she was going to go to bed and just try to sleep it all away.
The knocking started up again a little harder than before. Genna ignored it. She headed down the hall toward her bedroom but then the sound changed. The latch rattled and then there was a scraping as if someone was trying to force the lock.
Kriffing Manda! They were trying to break in! What the kriff! Had someone taken the lie about her lottery win seriously and thought she had the credits stuffed under her mattress?
She had thought this was a decent neighborhood, maybe one in which Tech could come and be with her and they could raise their child together. Well, she might not know much about raising a child but she could sure as kriff defend herself and the baby from a home invasion. Tech had given her the means to do so, after all.
As she drew the blaster he had given her out of the back of the drawer where she had hidden it with trembling hands, Genna thought she may have felt her very first truly maternal sensation. She would do anything to protect this child!
…
Echo had arrived on site at the precise moment to hear the screaming. He knocked on the door but didn't get any response. Maybe whoever was inside hadn't heard him, so he knocked again and heard another scream.
Clearly something inside that apartment was horribly wrong.
He knocked again more urgently this time but still his attempts went unanswered and he was beginning to worry that perhaps Genna or whoever it was could not get to the door to let him in.
For all of his, "I am prepared to set her free," Echo knew that Tech would never forgive him if something happened to his wife while his brother was present to prevent it.
The skill of forced entry was something that every cadet was taught as soon as they were tall enough to reach an access panel and though blasting the mechanism might have been the quick and easy method, Echo didn't want to give whoever was inside the idea to start shooting back.
What he found when he slowly slid the door open was the very last thing he expected. Genna herself held the blaster pointed directly at the entryway and after a moment of recognition her eyes grew wide and the weapon fell from her nerveless grip.
"Kriff! Echo! It's you!"
He was about to remark about the fact that she was standing on her own two feet when gravity took over and her legs began to crumple. He was across the room in two long strides and caught her before she hit the ground.
Genna wrapped her arms around him. "I just can't believe you're here!" Then she immediately pushed back and looked over his shoulder towards the door in expectation. "Are the other's here? Is Tech…"
"Nah, It's just me." He answered her gently and watched as her blue eyes went dark with disappointment.
"Oh, well." She disentangled herself and stood, eyeing the blaster on the ground and then giving him a sheepish grin. "I thought you were some kind of kriffing burglar."
"I thought you were being attacked." He countered as he also stood. "Was that you screaming?"
"At myself." She rolled her eyes. "I am my own worst enemy and only a danger to…"
Genna waved off the rest of the explanation and plodded towards her kitchen. She was certainly getting around better than the last time Echo had seen her a couple of months ago.
"Would you like something to drink? I don't have any alcohol in the place but I've got some shig straight from Mandalore."
"Shig would be fine." The last time he had sampled the drink had been with Riyo but he tried to push that memory to the back of his mind.
Echo bent to pick up the blaster she had dropped noticing that the safety was still on. Good thing, too. He knew that Tech hadn't had the time to give her proper instruction on how to use the thing. She might have managed to get off a lucky shot, or not so lucky rather.
"So how is everyone?" Genna spun around to face him once she had set the water on to boil. "Are they on a different mission?"
"I would assume so." He set the blaster on the kitchen table with a promise to himself that he would teach her how to use it if he had the time. "I have parted ways with the squad for a time."
"Oh?" she frowned.
"We ran into Captain Rex and while the rest of them are still trying to keep a low profile, I decided I could be of more use to some of our brothers who need assistance in leaving the Empire."
"Are there that many who want to leave?"
"Well with the defense recruitment bill and the stormtrooper initiative… didn't you hear the news?"
Genna shook her head and turned back to the cabinet to get out some mugs for them both. "I don't really watch the news much. It's too depressing." She set the cups on the counter and smiled at him. "Now the sports network I do watch occasionally. Speaking of keeping a low profile. Blue cream? Sucrose?"
"Both, please."
She nodded. "The last I had heard from Mollymauk's spy was that my husband had broken his leg on a mission to collect some kind of treasure chest but when I saw him win that riot race he seemed to be doing just fine."
That certainly didn't sound like someone who would relish the news that her husband was letting her go, so he deflected. "Hunter was not happy when he found out that the event was broadcast on the net."
"I kept checking back to see if he would race again but…"
The teapot whistled and she jumped and laughed. "Kriff!"
She poured the water over the shig leaves and bustled around the kitchen for the sucrose and cream.
"You look well," she changed the subject back to Echo. "I think maybe working with Captain Rex agrees with you."
"Yeah."
"Of course I'm sure you miss the rest of the squad." It was obvious she missed them too.
Genna added the condiments and passed him the mug. "But I assume you're working with a new team. It's not just you and Rex."
The aroma reminded him forcefully of Riyo.
"Is there possibly a female member of this network?"
"What?" He sputtered. Was she some sort of Jedi?
"Awe, there is!"
"How did you…"
"It's my sisterly intuition." She took a sip of her shig triumphantly. "And you blushed when I mentioned the new team."
He took a drink to cover his embarrassment and burned his mouth.
"If it's a secret I promise not to tell anyone. Not that I'm in contact with anyone to tell."
"It's just that we haven't known each other long and I'm not entirely sure how she feels."
She had mercy on him and didn't ask him anymore about it. "Well, I will keep your secret if you will keep mine that I'm… that I went to Mandalore for this shig and came back with a tattoo."
He was almost sure that she'd been about to say something else.
"You seem to be getting along quite well with this place and the new shop."
She had always been independent. She had run the fruit stand on her own and that was when she was stuck in the hover chair. He needed to tell her.
She sighed. "When I'm not screaming at myself because I'm a terrible mother and the baby's not even here yet?"
"What?" He couldn't have heard her right. And was she crying?
She threw her head back with a mirthless laugh and then admitted. "I'm pregnant."
No, Echo could definitely not give her the message from Tech. In fact it sounded like it would be much more important for Echo to deliver her news to him. "As soon as I finish with this mission I will get in contact with him and…"
"No!" Genna slammed her mug down on the table. "Kriff, no. You can't tell him. I don't want him to be distracted, to worry."
Her hands were shaking and she balled them into fists. "When he decides that we can kriff this osik'la double zero… I'll tell him myself."
…
"It isn't here."
They had their ship back, the young ipsium miners were free of a tyrannical leader, and most importantly Omega had come out of their scrape with Mokko alive. The boys had said that they had returned all of the squad's belongings but before they took off they each did an inspection for their own personal items.
"What isn't there?" Wrecker asked Tech, giving his Lula another squeeze.
"His painting of Genna." Omega smiled. She was just so happy to be back on the Marauder that she didn't think anything could spoil it. "You want to go and ask them about it? I'll go with you."
"No, I'll take care of it."
Tech entered the room where Benni had said the miners were gathering to eat and although there was plenty of food on the tables the boys seemed to be huddled around devouring something else. One of them whistled and a few of the others laughed or made evocative noises.
"Excuse me," he announced his presence. "I believe you still may be in possession of something that belongs to me."
"Oh, and what would that be?"
"It is a print of a painting about fifteen centimeters by…"
"You mean this?" The one called Drake held up the piece of flimzi and the other boys chuckled.
"Yes, that is exactly…" Tech stepped forward to claim the item but it was pulled back out of his reach.
"Come on, guys. Give it back." Benni tried to use a bit of his new clout as he was the one who had discovered Mokko was cheating them all, and they might have listened to him, but for something like this.
"Who is she?" one of the boys called out.
And another yelled, "do you know her?"
Tech fought the urge to grind his teeth. "She is my wife."
This brought on another round of tooka calls and rather risque comments. "You get to kriff that?"
Benni managed to wrestle the picture away without destroying it and handed it to Tech. But it was in that moment, when the image had been returned, that Tech realized he had made a grave mistake.
He walked back and boarded the ship and slid into the pilot's seat, placing the piece of flimsi on the instrument panel where he could see it while he made the calculations for take off. The looks on those boys' faces as they ogled Genna had shaken him. He would never capitulate to her finding someone else. Though now, did he even have the choice?
Omega skipped up to the seat beside him and strapped herself in. "We could try to comm Echo now," she suggested as if she had been reading his mind.
Tech checked the comm channel. "It seems he is still unavailable."
"Then try Rex." She smiled encouragingly. "He'll at least be able to tell you what sort of mission Echo was on."
It couldn't hurt to try, he supposed, and perhaps he could forward a message to rescind his previous message.
" Hello, didn't expect to hear from you all for a while. " Rex didn't seem to mind the interruption however.
"Omega, was interested to hear how Echo was doing." Tech hedged the primary topic.
" We took your advice and sent him to see your old pal Mollymauk. Would you believe she actually agreed to work with us? Well, not directly with our operations but the natborn side of things while we focus on getting our brothers out ."
That was it then. Echo would have delivered the message and Genna would understand why the proposition was logical.
"That's… excellent." Tech tried to keep up with the briefing that Rex was giving but his brain had stopped listening.
Through Rex's shimmering holoimage Omega looked up at him sympathetically.
"He may not have told her." Omega offered once the transmission had ended. "He may not have even seen Genna when he went to meet with Mollymauk."
"That is possible." Tech turned to focus on his piloting. It was a slim hope but there was still hope.
