I was vomiting again the next morning. Scared that something was wrong with me, I took sick leave from my rounds and stumbled groggily through the streets of Corasaunt, headed for the Jedi Council's headquarters. The streets were less crowded than normal - people could feel the threat hovering over the galaxy and were hiding or preparing for it as best they could. It was as if a giant, blazing meteor had appeared in the sky, headed for the planet - the sense of danger was that palpable.
Things would never be the same - one didn't have to be a divinator, in those days, to say this with some certainty. When I reached the headquarters I found that security had been trumped - I had to send a message to Master Windu and waited outside the building's gigantic doors for him to come and escort me inside.
When Mace appeared he looked grave, but managed a friendly smile for me. I wanted to rush into his arms but I restrained myself. I found myself longing for a mother, any mother, as I followed him into the building, feeling again like I would be sick.
" Callia," he said. He nearly insisted upon calling me by the proper form of my name - it was part of the Jedi coldness that I didn't understand. " You don't look well," he told me, blunt to the last.
" I'm not," I said, placing a hand on my stomach, " Something is wrong with me." Mace's face changed when he glanced down at the source of my pain, and I had a feeling he might 'sense' what was wrong with me. But I didn't trust the Jedi intuition more then than I ever had, so I asked if they had any resident doctors I could see.
" The military doesn't provide you with a hospital?" he asked, leading me to the medical station of the headquarters.
" They do," I admitted with a sigh. " But I wouldn't want to bother them now - everything on the base has gone bonkers lately." Mace nodded curtly.
" It has been somewhat 'bonkers' here as well," he said, though I couldn't see that anything had changed as we walked through the building's halls - all of the Jedi we passed looked as collected and contemplative as ever.
" Well," I said, " If its too much trouble -"
" Nonsense," Mace said with a wave of his hand. " The doctors here are happy to help anyone in need." Even as he spoke to me he seemed distracted, and I began to realize the comfort I was seeking could no longer come from the Jedi, who, as defenders of the Republic, were threatened by the Separtist movement as well.
" Thank you," I said when he led me into a room that was decorated entirely in a pearly white - a huge white desk in the shape of a semi-circle stood at the center of it.
" Opam," he said to the small Twi'lek man who stood behind the desk. He made me think of Ipa, my Twi'lek friend - I wondered where she was and how her people would be effected by the war. I hoped she was safe.
" My young friend here is having some stomach pains," he explained to the front desk worker, " Is one of the doctors available?"
" Um," Opam said, consulting a computer. " Yes, but only for a moment."
" It shouldn't take long," Mace said, his implied knowledge making me uncomfortable.
" Follow me, then," Opam said, walking back toward a set of double doors that led to the examining rooms.
" I'll wait here," Mace promised, and I gave him a grateful smile.
The doctor, to my admittedly racist relief, was human. I trusted the humans to best understand the workings of their own kind, and the doctors that had come in various speices to the orphanage had always made me nervous with their alien apendages - the rare human doctor had been a welcome comfort.
" Hello," he said, smiling and looking me over - he was an older man, thick in the waist. I wondered what it took to be a Jedi's doctor? Had he flunked respectably out of the Academy - an adept meditator who simply had poor fighting skills? He told me to hop onto the examing table, and I obeyed, nervous.
" I'm just going to ask you a few questions, Calli," he said, automatically guessing my nickname as he glanced at the chart I'd filled out. I smiled, glad he was less formal than Mace.
" Okay."
" Firstly," he said, " You said you were having stomach pains?"
" Yes."
" You've been vomitting?"
" Uh huh."
" How long has this been going on?"
" Just since last night," I said.
" Were you drinking last night?"
" No."
" Smoking anything? Death sticks?"
" No. But I uh, used to cigarillos in school." He jotted something on his chart, and I wondered if I should have admitted to this.
After some writing, he looked up, and asked something, boredly, that floored me.
" Is it possible that you're pregnant?"
I opened my mouth to tell him no, I was taking birth control supplements. They'd been given to us at the orphanage since we hit puberty, to keep more unwanted children from crowding their rooms. And I'd been careful to continue taking them after I left with Boba, knowing full well that for the first time in my life they would be put to some use. After Boba left I'd even continued to take them out of habit - but once I ran out, I hadn't bought any more at the market. They were not easy to come by on Geonosis, and I thought, Why bother? By the time I'd gotten back out to the market it had become clear that Boba was gone for good. And I didn't exactly have other suitors lining up at the door of the cave.
" Miss Antilles?" the doctor said, leaning toward me and waiting for a response.
" I, um -" I stammered, trying to imagine how it was possible. I had slept with Boba that night he appeared at my window - how could I not think of the birth control supplements that I hadn't taken in almost a year? I pinched my eyes shut, unwilling to believe it. I considered lying to him, but I wasn't sure what kind of powers a Jedi doctor had.
" Its possible," I squeaked, " Yes."
" We'll do a pregnancy test, then," he said, almost cheerfully. Perhaps he couldn't tell by looking at me the situation I was in - maybe he thought I was someone's happy wife, surprised but not wrecked by news of her pregnancy.
I didn't have to wait for the results of the test - I knew before he showed me the positive marker that I was carrying Boba's child. As soon as the idea was suggested to me it seemed obvious.
" Any guess as to how far along you are?" the doctor asked. " I can do another test to find out -"
" No," I said, " I know. A month and a half." That was the last time I'd seen Boba - that night when I'd accused him of not giving a damn, the night he called me a fool, and somewhere in the midst of this we'd made love and made a baby.
The doctor nodded, lowering his chart to his chest.
" Because you're not very far along," he said, " I can give you purges if you decide not to keep the baby. They are somewhat painful, but some women prefer them to surgery."
I sat still on the examining table, my thighs, suddenly sweaty, sticking to the paper that covered it. I remembered one night, a long time ago, at the orphanage. Boba and I had had snuck out after lights out for a smoke, and had heard one of the matrons coming down the hall. Knowing she would smell the fumes, we stamped out our cigarillos and ran to hide - we ducked inside one of the teacher's offices and smashed ourselves under his desk. Unfortunatly, the offices in the orphanage were connected to the teachers' living quarters, so, hearing the noise, our professor awoke and came into his office to see what was the matter. We stayed as still and silent as stones under the desk, though it was hard. It was not by any means enough room for the two of us to sit comfortably - my legs were squished up to my chest and my feet rested in Boba's lap - his arms crunched up against my knees.
Our teacher, meanwhile, used the disturbance as an excuse to stay up and listen to records. We had to remain hidden through two symphonies and one opera, which nearly had us in hysterics - we hadn't heard much opera before, and the dramatic foreign music was strangely comical to two kids shoved under a desk in the middle of the night. I was in love with Boba then, and my heart was already leaping at our closeness - when I saw him laughing silently, shoulders shaking, eyes closed, his hands on my knees, I remember thinking there was nothing more beautiful in the world than the boy I loved when he smiled. I wanted so badly to kiss him - though even if I'd have mustered up the courage I couldn't have, we were so cramped and unable to move. He actually fell asleep pressed against me like that, while the music kept me awake. His head had fallen forward, I remember, and the scent of his hair was driving me mad. In the boldest moment of my life I kissed one of his knuckles while he slept - so lightly that he scarely would have felt it if he was awake. In a butterfly's flutter of a movement my lips brushed his skin, and a line borrowed from trash romances and holovid dramas buzzed in my young mind.
I wanted to have his children.
As a girl I had naviely dreamed that we would somehow remain together, that we would have all the normal things that people who were in love cultivated - children included. I could even see them in my mind, then - hybrids of the most beautiful parts of us, my navy eyes and his charcoal hair, a mixture of our skin, like coffee with too much cream.
Sitting the in doctor's office, however, I couldn't picture the child that Boba and I had created at all - the very idea seemed impossible. Because I didn't have Boba's permission to bear his children? It felt, cruelly, like I'd stolen something of his, wicked for coming away with a part of him still inside me.
I didn't want a child, and the very idea of motherhood terrified me - I'd never had an example, only the vaguely concerned matrons of the orphanage, who had to raise children like crops, dolling out attention evenly and therefore sparsely. Furthermore I didn't want to bring a child who would never know his father into the world - only to have him become like me, someone who had to sift through other people's memories for an image of this mystery man.
And yet.
" No," I said, zombie-like, sliding off the examining table. " No purges. I have to go now."
" Miss Antilles," the doctor, formal again, said as I stumbled from the room. " I can see that you are surprised - don't hesitate to come back if you change your mind, and if not, do return for prenatal care. Take care of yourself," he called, as I disappeared down the hall.
I found a wall and leaned against it - I knew I wouldn't change my mind. As impractical as it was, I couldn't imagine getting rid of our baby. Our baby - mine and Boba's. The very concept of a merger of our cells was hard to grasp. I put my hand on my stomach, over the imperceptible child growing inside me. The idea of harboring another life made me shudder: the terrible responsibility, the strange excitement.
When I returned to the waiting room, Mace was giving me a knowing look. I walked to him and crossed my arms over my chest, afraid of his disapproval. On a holovid behind the front desk I could hear a news conference they were broadcasting - something about imminent aggression from the Separatists - but 'remain calm' the newscaster warned. I felt as though he were talking directly to me. Your life may be be exploding, but remain calm.
" You are going to be a mother, Callia," Mace said, without trying to hide what he had already sensed. " Congradulations." Tears pushed against the baracades of my eyelids, and I tried my best to hold them in, nodding somberly at his awknowledgement.
" Come with me," he said, gentley taking my arm. " I want to show you something." I followed without a word.
We rode the elevator in silence that was awkward for me, but Mace seemed comfortable beside me. The ride was long, and when we stepped off we were on the building's top floors. Mace led me into a circular room lined with low, white chairs. The walls of the room were almost entirely made of windows - windows that looked out over the huge city below. Mace walked to one of them and I accompanied him, looking out over the city and trying to see what it was he wanted to show me.
" Look at this city," he said, " This very civilization. The Jedi are encouraged to love and protect all people, and because this is my home I feel particularly strong about this place. And yet I know that though I will fight, I must watch as it is destroyed."
A tear slid down my cheek. The sun was beginning to go down outside - the city was bathed in orange. I had no love for any planet, but this was the place where my parents had lived, the place where I was conceived. The last of them would be gone if Corasaunt fell. It was also the place where my own child had been conceived, I realized.
" The Separatists," I said, " Do you really think they could do damage to a place as powerful as Corasaunt?"
" It is not the politicians I'm worried about," Mace said, " They are merely being manipulated by the Sith."
" The Sith," it was a dark word that I had heard in passing several times - full of mystery, never really explained, only implied as the greatest evil in the galaxy.
" Callia," he said, turning to me, " I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but I feel strongly that you were meant to give birth to this child, that it is of great importance."
I was taken aback - what grand purpose could the bastard child of two orphans serve? I supposed my child had as good a chance as anyone did to make a difference in the world - but how could even a Jedi see so far into the future?
" When I saw you today I could sense this new life growing inside you," he said, his eyes turning back to the city, aflame with sunset. " I've had the same feeling about another good friend, a woman who has also been left alone with the burden of her pregnancy."
" A Jedi?" I asked, surprised.
" A Senator, actually," Mace said, " Someone who is already very distraught over the crisis in the Republic." He sighed. " Hearing the news of her pregnancy, and yours, has given me some of the small hope that I am still harboring for the Republic's survival."
" I don't understand," I said, shaking my head, " Why?"
" It is a premonition, I suppose," Mace said. " I cannot explain it, I can only give you the advice that I gave to her - to remove yourself from Corasaunt immediately, to find a safe place to give birth to your child. You have the advantage of anonymity, unlike her. Do you have a safe place where you can go?"
My head was spinning - " Yes," I said, " There is a place on Geonosis, not far from their Imperial Coliseum."
" Yes, I know the area," he said, " Do you have friends, someone to attend to you when you give birth?"
" Yes," I lied. All of this was happening too fast - the way Mace was talking I expected a doomsday device to fall from the sky any moment. I looked around the room. " What is this place?" I asked, noting the strange arrangement of the furniture. " We didn't see this on the tour."
" This is where the Jedi Masters meet to discuss the events of the galaxy, to develop courses of action for the Jedi to take," Mace said, observing the room with a sigh. " All of the Masters have been called away on duty, now that we are facing war."
" And you?" I asked.
" Corasaunt is my command center," he said, and I understood the burden that had fallen on him.
" If the world was ending," I said, softly, looking back outside as the last of the sun sank below the horizon. " You'd feel it, wouldn't you?"
" Yes," he answered, not facing me.
I didn't dare to ask him what he knew.
I had to take another pregnancy test when I returned to the base that night, so that my claim of leave for medical reasons could be proven. When the test came back positive the formal papers were drawn up - my commanders seemed disappointed, but it was hard to detect, I suppose, under the cloud of disappointment that had already settled over the entire planet. Palpatine had resurfaced that afternoon and declared his loyalty to the Separatists, who were pledging alleigence to him, as an individual, to lead them. Democracy, which seemed unfellable, had become a child shaking a stick at a hurricaine. Splintering in the wind.
" We're sorry to loose you, Antilles," my superiors said, and I knew that they would be sorry to loose anyone, then. I nodded and took myself from their sad, still room in the lower levels of the base, which had been put on red alert that day.
As I was packing up my things in my apartment, preparing to leave for Geonosis that night, someone pounded on my door. I jumped and dropped the dress I'd been folding - the elaborate one I'd worn to the ball - why was I even bringing it? I wondered as I looked down at its crumpled form at my feet.
The only people who knew where I lived in the city were Darren and Boba, and I had a good idea which of them would bother to knock before entering.
When I opened the door Darren glared at me. He was leaning against the frame - he was disheveled and smelled like high-class booze.
" The base is on red alert," I said, at a loss, " What are you doing here?"
" You coward," he spat at me, stumbling into the room.
I turned from him and went to the bed, continued with my packing. I didn't have time to explain myself to Darren. All domestic interplanetary flight had been suspended, but Mace had pulled some strings and gotten me on a government vessel that was secretly taking important people from the capitol's airdock at midnight. I didn't have much time - I hadn't expected my commanders to make me prove that I was pregnant. In times like those it seemed as if such a thing hardly mattered, though I suppose Mace would disagree.
Darren fell heavily onto the bed and leaned forward, staring down at his shoes.
" Why, Antilles?" he asked, running his hands frantically through his blonde hair, " Why are you doing this? I thought you were -" he let the sentence sink, and looked to me for an answer.
" I'm pregnant," I told him, having nothing to loose. His eyes filled up with something I thought I recognized as longing, but hoped was only pity.
" Who?" he asked, dumbfounded. I knew he had been watching me, and surely he'd never seen me with a man he could have misconstrued as a bedmate. When I didn't answer, only zipped my bags, he drew his own conclusion, his face growing darker.
" That bounty hunter," he said in a grimace, " The one you called out to. The one who did this to me." Without warning he reached up and ripped off the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a still healing wound, the place where the shot from Boba's blaster had met his shoulder.
" Look at this!" he screamed, pointing at the injury, walking to me.
" I - see," I said, flicking my eyes to the dried blood, the scarred tissue.
" This is what he'll do to you, too," Darren promised. " Men like that - they don't care who they hurt."
He was probably right.
" He'll have nothing to do with me anymore," I said. " I'm going away from here, to have the baby alone."
Darren's eyes jutted busily about and I could see him finding what, to him, would be the easy solution.
" Marry me, then," I heard the words before he even said them, because they had formed in my own mind several hours before. I had remembered Darren's affection - his odd, boorish tenderness. But more than that his family's wealth, their station. A husband like Darren could give me everything I wanted, war or no, alive or killed in battle. I would be secure - my baby would have a home.
But I would have made myself a prosititute.
" No," I said, " I already belong to someone else."
" To him," Darren spat, pushing me roughly onto the bed. I bounced there, and then lay flat, waiting. Again a man controlled my destiny - he could destroy me, or set me free. Only Boba had done both at once. Darren's anger subsided when he glanced down at me, surrendered on the bed, unafraid.
" You said you were ready to die," he reminded me, his voice cracking.
" I can't claim that anymore," I said, my voice light in an effort to be gentle with him. " I have my child to think about now."
" Callia," he said, leaning over me, his stomach pressing to mine. " Let me take care of you. I will provide for you and for this other man's child - I will raise it like its my own." I knew this was a lie, that no man could conquer the idea that he was picking up after another's scraps.
" Darren," I said, " Please let me go."
" I can't," he said, letting his head fall heavily onto my chest. " I love you," he muttered into my shirt.
" You don't even know me," I said, carefully pushing on his shoulders until he rolled off of me.
" You're making a huge mistake," he said as I reached for my bag.
Financially, I knew he was right. But I would never be able to live with myself or be true to my child if I married a man I didn't love.
A less noble part of me also knew that a shallow marriage would mean never seeing Boba again. Sadly, the off chance of meeting him even one more time, of hearing his voice, smelling his skin, was worth a lifetime of riches and safety.
Darren wouldn't let me go without demanding once again that I observe his ghastly wound - he seemed to think that the pain Boba had caused him would woo me.
" Look at what the man you love has done to me," he said, nearly crying. I did look, and I walked back to him. At our differing heights, I had to lift my head to reach his shoulder, and on the mass of torn skin I placed the ghost of a kiss. I felt him shudder.
" I'm so sorry," I whispered into his wound. I was sorry that I wasn't a better, smarter woman - someone who could have perhaps seen Darren as the potential for great love. Rather than the madwoman I was - desiring only to kiss the sick part of him that Boba had touched.
When the last ship off of Corasaunt left the docking bay, I was aboard it. The other passengers were nervous political figures, pacing about the ship and talking to each other in hushed voices. Meanwhile I was an anonymous girl with long hair finally let loose from tight braids, feeling exhilerated in her new civilian clothes.
I watched Corasaunt disappear behind us, and wondered what would happen to those who weren't lucky enough to get a ride off.
As the long ride to Geonosis – stopping along the way to drop others off at Alderran and a few other planets – began, I settled into my seat and tried to sleep, but couldn't. My mind still hadn't settled.
I was free of the army, but forever enslaved by my pregnancy. I was going to have a baby – my brain couldn't quite pound the idea past my forehead. What kind of mother would I be? I had no idea what a real mother was like – was she kind, or was discipline more important? Did showing love for a child come naturally, or would I be at a loss because I'd never received it? How badly would giving birth hurt – and who would help me when the time came?
What would I tell my child about his father?
I shut my eyes – the kind of tight, purposeful pinch that never allows sleep. I felt tears forming and trying to slide past my lashes – I pinched them tighter, not allowing it. I hated that the constant ache in me for Boba had been amplified since I'd found out that I was carrying his child. More than anything I wanted to know what he would think – would he be ashamed of a baby he hadn't mean to create? Would he feel obligated; would he feel sorry for me? Gods – could he possibly be happy about the idea of a son or daugther?
No – I knew, with an obsene guilt, that Boba had never been happy. And even if he put a saber through the heart of his Jedi assasin, I knew he never would be, until his father had risen from the grave.
Which would never happen. I was in love with a man who was completely doomed.
People on the right side of the ship had left their seats and were crowded around the windows, whispering in what sounded like a guiltily excited terror. I stood slowly and walked over to where they were gathered, peeking under a tall man's arm to have a look at what all the comotion was about.
It looked like a giant steele arrow. It was the biggest ship I had ever seen – the sheer size of it as it glided silently past made goosebumps rise on my arms. And the utlilitarian design – it is hard to describe now, when the Imperial Star Destroyers have become so commonplace, but everyone my age remembers the first time they saw one. Before we even knew what they were, they terrified us.
I heard murmurs in the crowd – 'the Separatists' and 'covert' and 'aggressive.'
My life grew cold on that long trip back to Geonosis. I could feel the universe shifting around me – the dark things Mace and Boba had warned me about creeping in to suffocate the good in the world.
When I saw the red planet where I'd spent both the best and worst days of my life reappear through the windows of the ship, my throat went dry with terror. I was being taken back to the prison of my loneliness. And yet it seemed like the natural place to go – a safe place where I wouldn't be bothered by the emerging powers that Mace feared. A safe place for my child – if either of us could maintain our sanity inside those red canyon walls.
The first couple of days back on Geonosis were alright. I bought a new speeder – much sleeker than the clunky one I'd owned last time I'd lived on the planet. I went to the market and got healthy foods, vowed to learn to cook and to take care of myself while I was carrying my baby. The inside of the cave had fallen into disarray, of course, in the time that I'd been gone, but not as badly as I'd expected. It took me awhile to realize why things hadn't completely gone to seed – someone had been stopping in from time to time.
Boba.
The sheets were a mess on our old bed, but they weren't as dusty as they should have been. The kitchen was dirty and in need of a good scrubbing, but pots and kettles were clean and in different places than where I'd left them over a year ago. Packs of the gross jerky that he liked were in the cupboards.
When I realized that he'd been back, I took a seat on the edge of the bed and let out my breath. I wondered if, the first time he returned, he panicked when he found me gone. I wondered how long he waited, to see if I'd just stepped out to the market. Hours? Days? How long had it taken him to return again – did he expect to find me the second time? And why, as the evidence in the cave suggested, had he continued to return?
There were a million questions like this buzzing through my mind in the early stages of my pregnancy. I rarely slept for more than a few hours at a time, and would instead lay awake wondering what would become of us: myself, my baby, and Boba. Some nights I almost expected him to walk in through the cave's entrance, set down his helmut and take me in his arms, maybe make some promises that he wouldn't keep. If there was one evil I couldn't accuse him of it was making empty promises: he had never told me he wouldn't abandon me, he had never said he would be faithful: he had never even told me that he loved me. Not out loud, anyway. And yet I felt constantly betrayed for all of these reasons: he had left me, he had not remained faithful to what I felt was sacred, and he had put his agenda ahead of a love I was as sure of in silence as I would have been had he pledged it a thousand times.