My stomach grew. It would sneak up on me some mornings: for long periods it would remain the same size, and then, seemingly all of a sudden, I would notice an increased bulge. I bought a needle and thread from the marketplace and took out the hem of my skirt, then took it out again, and again. For the first time since Boba had left them to me, I enjoyed my surplus of credits: I ate like a Geonosian king: or like a visiting human king on Geonosis might, leaving off the bugs and larve the natives prized. I abandoned meals and simply snacked all day at every craving: on healthy foods, but a glut of them all the same. My arms, muscled from the Republic's training, grew soft again, my ankles thickened considerably – even my face looked rounder when I caught sight of it in a Geonosian's shop window. I smiled to myself that day, happy with my plumper new figure – I had been an pallid-skinned orphan at the mercy of a government-regulated diet, a love-starved waif wasting away, and a hard-edged, stanch Republic pilot, and out of all of my shapes, I preferred the pregnant, heartsick fool: my new body was more comfortable, and because I felt healthy, I was sure that my baby was happily growing fuller, too.
I couldn't re-adapt to the solitude of the cave's walls: I found myself looking ridiculously forward to going to the market each day, and staying longer and longer at the counter, bothering the Geonosian clerk with chit-chat. I decided that before I was banned from my favorite grocery stand for being an obnoxious chatterbox of a human, I would have to do what I was both dreading and dying to give in to: return to Eulee's bar, where the bounty hunters whose conversations I had once followed obsessively did their drinking.
I picked a clear, warm night to make my journey back to the bar, and felt much safer travelling there in my shiny new speeder. I wore a huge, gray man's coat that I'd found at a junk store to hide my pregnancy, figuring that I'd already look out of place enough without my protruding stomach making an appearance.
" Hey, here she is," Eulee said from behind the counter when I walked in. She was ringing up a customer, but paused to give me, an old regular, a Gragarian grin. " We thought you'd died, blondie." I snorted with a dark laugh in response.
" I was gone for awhile," I said, stupidly, embarrassed with the attention in a place where I was usually a silent observor. " But now I'm back."
" Yeah, so we see," said my usual waitress, a friendly woman with long, dark hair. " Usual table for one?" I nodded. She sat me where she knew I liked to be: close to the larger tables where the hunters gathered.
There weren't many of them there that night: I knew that most of them would be busy: working, because of all of the double-crossing and assassinating that had been going on in the news before I left Corasaunt, I knew they would be in high demand. The girls looked bored – many of their faces were familiar; Tinka, Dengar's girl, was holding a smoking death stick, drumming her nails on the table, and yawning.
" Where's Cniala tonight?" another girl asked her. Tinka gave her an uninvolved half-shrug.
"Probably off with Karmac," she said, taking a drag from the death stick. "He's back from Corasaunt this week." My ears perked up, and I looked up from the steaming stew I'd ordered.
" Oh yeah," the girl, a homely young woman with short, bluish hair and pale skin, said. "Did he see Dengar while he was there?"
"Yeah," Tinka said after a pause. I noticed a hint of something more hostile than usual in her tone: she sounded angry at the mention of Dengar's name.
" Well?" the blue-haired girl prodded, less observant than I was about the fragility of the subject, " How is he?"
" Is it really any of your business, Ami?" Tinka snapped, pounding her death stick out into an ashtray on the table.
" Tinka . . ." Ami said, giving her a sympathetic look. A hunter from the table next to theirs looked up from his card game, put down his hand (much to the displeasure of some of his companions) and walked over to Tinka, placing a hand on her shoulder. She flinched at first, but after looking up at him softened, and put her face in her hands.
" Leave me alone," she muttered, her voice small.
" Hey," the hunter, a thin man with spiked hair, said. "He'll be okay."
" No he won't," Tinka said, looking up again, flame in her eyes, " He'll never be the same. And he won't see me."
" Its just his pride, Tinka," the man assured her. " He wants to see you, he really does – but . . ."
" I told him I don't care," she said, her voice nearly breaking, " I told him I don't care how he looks. I . . . I just want to see him. I miss him." Though she was typically cold and mean-spirited, I felt for the girl then, and heard in her myself, crying the same words in Boba's absence, countless times.
" And you will," the man promised, " When he's ready." Tinka let out a choppy breath.
" No," she said, " I know I'll never see him again. Karmac told me – he told me the truth. He – he didn't want to coddle me like this, sugar coat things. He says he's a changed man. He says . . ."
" Well, then he must have also told you that he and Boba have decided they're not going to keep putting up with this kind of stuff from Garko's boys," he said, and I turned slightly, as if I might catch sight of him after his name had been mentioned. " There are certain things all of us abide by – we don't always play fair with each other – hell, we'll steal right out of each other's hands any chance we get –"
Some of the hunters, who had abandoned their game and were listening to his pep talk, chuckled and grinned knowingly.
" But there are some things that bounty hunters just don't do to each other. Not when real professionals like Karmac and Boba are around, anyway," he told her.
" Boba, you said?" Tinka asked, wiping at her eyes.
" Yeah, Karmac didn't tell you?" the man said. " He's been helping Dengar since Garko's men attacked him – and he's promised to help Karmac find them and put a stop to all of this sabatoge and gang rule."
" Really?" she said, brightening, " Boba's gone after them?"
" Well, he will," the man told him, " And why shouldn't he? Garko's attempts to monopolize the bounty market are hurting his business, too – its about time someone put a stop to this, and who better to do it than Boba? He's made a real name for himself in the city this year . . . gained a real reputation, separate from his dad's. So as soon as Dengar is all healed up, he and Karmac will take care of it."
" Wait, wait," Tinka said, a tiny smile creeping onto her face. " You mean to say . . . Boba Fett is nursing Dengar back to health?"
" I wouldn't call it nursing exactly," the man said with a smirk, " I mean, he's not spooning soup into his mouth and tucking him in to bed . . . but he's making sure his condition doesn't get worse, and watching out for him in the meantime."
" Gah, a Fett lending someone a hand?" one of the hunters at the nearby table scoffed. " Betcha Jango's flippin' in his grave."
The man nodded. " Boba's got a few different policies. He still works alone, but he doesn't frown completely on some loose alliances. He knows somebody who'll repay a favor when he sees them."
" Thank the gods for him," Tinka sobbed suddenly. " I know plenty of hunters who would have left a competitor like Dengar to die."
" How about a little credit for me, too?" a familiar voice boomed from the doorway, and I turned along with the others to see Karmac entering. The others called out his name cheeringly as he approaching – Karmac, I'd gathered over my many visits, was one of the more popular hunters with the crowd at Eulee's. Tinka actually got up and threw her arms around the muscular man's enormous shoulders. He chuckled and gave her a pat on the back, quickly releasing her at the throat-clearing of a petite girl who had followed him in.
"Cniala," Tinka beamed, hugging her in turn, despite the annoyed look she received. " Has Karmac told you? – Dengar's going to be okay."
" Yes, its wonderful," Cniala yawned, falling into a seat at the girls' table. " Can I bum a death stick?"
Tinka handed her a pack without looking and turned back to Karmac, grinning happily.
" They were telling me that you and Boba have been watching Dengar's back while he's – out of commission, on Corasaunt," she said.
" We've been doing more than that," Karmac said, sitting. " This thing with Garko has come to a point. We're going to end it – for Dengar, and for all of us who've been tripped up by his agenda in the city."
Tinka sighed. " I'm sure you will. Garko is a joke compared to the two of you – and his men are no better. Remember that pathetic twit, Pewa?" A green-skinned hunter at the table snicked darkly.
" Yeah," he said, " I remember the day Boba dropped him on Corasaunt." I turned slightly, trying to see the man at the table without appearing too obvious. Could he be one of the hunters I'd arrested the day I saw Boba? I remembered Pewa being there, and I remembered Boba firing on him that day . . .
" I heard about that," Karmac said, beckoning to the waitress. " I'll have the usual," he shouted to her, and she nodded. " What happened, exactly?" he asked when he turned back to the table.
" Pewa was giving Boba a hard time for beating him to some bounty – something really low-profile, too, something Boba practically stumbled over, it was such a simple job. Nothing to get worked up about at all," the green-skinned man remembered. " Pewa actually had the nerve to draw a blaster – we all had a good laugh over it: Pewa thinking he'd be even remotely threatening to Boba. But that wasn't even what did it."
The man paused for effect, smiled around at the faces listening to his story.
" Boba's girl showed up," he said, " And Pewa shot at her. He was dead before he could take his hand off the trigger."
My heart was racing as I remembered the confusing confrontation in the warehouse – the hunters assuming I was Boba's long-lost love, because of my stupid reaction at seeing him, and the blonde braid he wore on his breat plate.
Around the table there were whistles and gasps at the idea of Pewa's nerve – and many of the girls exclaimed in surprise at the suggestion of Boba keeping a 'girl' on Corasaunt.
" What girl was this?" Tinka asked curiously. " I've heard plenty of girls come back from the city bragging that they spent the night with him – but I never got the impression that he had a particular attachment to any given one of them."
" Was it that meek little thing who wandered in here last year, claiming they'd travelled together?" Ami asked.
" I wouldn't call her meek exactly," the green-skinned man said with a laugh, " She was an officer in the Republic army – she showed up guns blazing, ready to arrest him!"
Both tables erupted in shocked laughter. My cheeks burned, and I couldn't stop my lips from curling into a small smile as well.
" What?" Tinka said, leaning forward, bothered by this revelation. " Why would Boba take up with some Republic-loving twit?"
" Who knows," the green-skinned man said with a shrug, " She was a looker, and you got the feeling she wasn't expecting to see him. She got this look on her face like she'd seen a ghost – her commander, a real prick, was having a fit – and Pewa fired on her while she was standing there dumbstruck."
" So what made you think there was a romance there?" Ami asked, obviously enjoying this little comedy of errors. " Just because Boba killed Pewa after he fired at the girl? He was probably going to kill him anyway."
" Maybe so," green-skin conceded, " But have you ever noticed that braid that Boba wears on his armor – hanging down from his shoulder?"
Tinka and Ami exchanged a look, signalling that it had been discussed many a time.
" We thought," Ami said, " That it was maybe from that waif who showed up here and told us they'd had a fling." I smiled into my soup at her accurate observation – these girls knew almost as much about Boba as I did.
" I'm not sure," green-skin said, " But this girl's hair was blonde, too, and she and Boba definitly knew each other. I've never seen Fett flinch – not at blaster fire, not at jumping out a tenth-story window with a bounty in tow – but when he saw that girl, it was like something made his heart stop. He flinched."
" Well, well," Ami said with a satisfied grin, sitting back. " Luna'd just die with jealousy! Does she still ask you about Boba?" she asked Karmac.
" I haven't worked for her again," Karmac said. " I'm too scared she'll find out I was withholding information about him before, since I'm sure she's found out by now that he's been working again."
" Oooh, big bad Karmac scared of a little Alderraanian princess!" Cniala teased.
" Princess nothing," Karmac scoffed, unembarrassed. " You don't know Luna. Anyway, I did tell Boba that she'd been asking about him."
" Oh, what'd he say?" Ami squealed, eating up the gossip.
" He got a sort of thoughtful look on his face, and told me to tell her he wasn't interested in a reunion," Karmac said.
Alone at my table, my heart soared.
" And I said, you don't tell Luna Organa no, or at least, you don't if you value your life," Karmac continued. " And I asked him why he wasn't into her, because you know, for all the drooling these gals do over Boba, (he flicked at thumb at Ami and Tinka here) Luna's probably equal to him in terms of desirabilty to the opposite sex."
" What he say??" Ami demanded again, nearly bursting with the pleasure of gleaning new information about Boba. I was listening intently as well: well, Boba? Why not?
" You know the famous closed-lip Fetts," Karmac said, waving a hand in the air and accepting his drink from the waitress. " He didn't exactly get into it. Just said he remembered Luna as a seven year old kid who used to sneak jawa juice from the cooler with him while his father was sleeping. Said that they had a short friendship as kids but that he hadn't seen her since and didn't plan to again."
" Oh," Ami said, deflating. " How boring."
Though I was satisifed with this, my heart sunk a bit – I secretly, of course, wanted Boba to announce to all of these people - who surely thought I was a dull, creepy loner – that I was the one, true love of his life, and that it was his upspoken devotion to me that kept him from chasing Alderaanian princess-tail.
Naturally, this would never happen, so, fulfilled for the evening with my share of limited human contact, I paid for my dinner, thanked Eulee, and headed home.
All the way back on the dark ride home, a longing for Boba blossomed in me – a new sort of longing, born from the words of those in the tavern who, sadly, knew him better than I did then. I was pleased by the idea of Boba watching out for Dengar, the charming man who I remembered holding Tinka in his lap at the tavern. The other hunters seemed surprised that Jango Fett's son could show the occasional smidgen of compassion, and I told myself, rather grandly, that this had grown out of the time he spent growing up alongside me. The hunters knew Jango, but they didn't know that Boba had also spent his youth in the company of a twiggy, starry-eyed little girl, who maybe taught him a thing or two about friendship and warmth, if not in the days she played beside him as a child, at least when she curled up asleep in his arms as a teenager.
I arrived back at the cave feeling rather proud of myself, and of Boba, too, for sacrificing a bit of his all-important hard-ass image to help out a fellow hunter.
As I was undressing, I felt something stirring inside me – at first I assumed it was just the weird pressure of sexual desire – I'd been extremely susceptible to strange bouts of it since I'd become pregnant – but then I realized that it was actually something physical moving inside me, not just my hunger for one thing or another drawing my attention to my mid-section.
My baby was moving.
My knees grew weak and I sat gently down on the bed. The movement had been the tiniest flutter, and yet it stopped me in my tracks. I placed a hand over my stomach and waited, almost holding my breath, for another tiny shudder – when the baby kicked again I cried out in a giggly sort of joy, tipped my head back and grinned enormously at the ceiling of the cave. It was a moment of happiness so pure that tears snuck into the corners of my eyes – but it quickly dissolved to loneliness when it washed over me that I had no one to share this with. No loving partner to call over and share in my happy surprise. The emptiness of the cave gaped back at me in the near-darkness, and with a heavy heart, I blew out the last of the candles that had lit my makeshift bedroom, and climbed under the covers.
" I know I'm not really alone," I whispered, directing the words to my stomach. "You're here with me," I said to my baby, rubbing the bulge that was the evidence of him gentley. " We have each other."
Lying awake then as I often did, my sympathetic feelings toward Boba evaporated somewhat, and I couldn't help resenting the fact that he was taking care of someone else while I, pregnant with his child, was curled alone into the bed we once shared. Who would care for me when I became too heavy to make to climb into my speeder for a trip to the market? Who would hold my hand when the labour pains started rolling over me – who would help me deliver my baby?
I pulled the covers up over my head and pinched my eyes shut tight.
" I'll figure something out," I promised our unborn child in a whisper through the darkness.
But when the time came when it was hard for me to struggle into the speeder with my giant stomach and exhasted body, no grand plan had surfaced. Time gets away from you when you're living alone in a cave, so I really had no idea how far along I was – I could have been eight months along or two weeks overdue, for all I knew. On my final trip into town with my huge belly, I knew what I had to do: ask for someone's help. But I had no idea where to go to find it.
When I reached the market I loaded the speeder up with as much food as I could fit in its limited space: loads of bread, fruit, and plenty of Bantha milk. My hands were shaking as I purchased extra sheets and towels from a vendor near the coleseum. I can't do this, I kept thinking, I can't do this alone. The image of those towels and sheets soaked with my blood made my cheeks go white, and I turned toward the Geonosian shopkeeper with the intention of asking her where I could find someone who had any kind of knowledge of human medicine, but I was met by the usual unfriendly Geonosian expression, and I couldn't get the question out. I paid for the linens and left.
What else? I thought, gliding past the stores near the market, racking my brain for anything my baby and I might need. I had no idea when I'd be able to make it to the market next, how long a woman felt too weak to get out of bed after she gave birth.
A dark thought trickled through my mind and I shuddered: if I survive that part.
Suddenly it hit me, and I couldn't believe that it hadn't before – it was so obvious that I almost laughed.
I would die in the same way my mother had.
My hands started shaking so violently that I had to put the speeder down. I covered my face with them – they felt clammy with sweat from my nervousness. I remembered pondering over this before – how alike Boba and I were in the repeated fate of our dead parents. Boba off flying around in his father's armor, me alone, pregnant, and as good as dead for all the chance I had of surviving my pregnancy.
Before I could completely collapse with fear, I let myelf realize what I had to do: I had to ask for help from the only humans I had found on the planet – those at Eulee's tavern. It was a terrifying idea: they were friendly with each other, but in general they were a rough bunch, and I doubted they would jump at the chance to hand out charity to a stranger. I knew my only hope was with the girls, and though I was almost certain they would brush me off as a pathetic lunatic, I had to try, for my baby's sake.
My ride toward the tavern was the closest I'd had on my new speeder to a shaky one – my trembling, sweaty hands could hardly keep their grip on the controls. When I reached the ghost town where the tavern was located, it looked very different: I had never been there during the daytime, and the dusty, hollowed out buildings that stared me down as I approached the tavern seemed more threatening than they did under the cover of darkness. I hurriedly pushed my way inside.
The place was nearly empty, and my heart started, afraid that none of the usual females would be hanging around during the daytime. But when my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the place I saw them: sitting in the corner, looking as if they were about to nod off, were Tinka, Cniala and another girl I didn't recognize, who had pointed ears and dark purple hair pulled back in a braid. Tinka and Cniala were smoking in silence; the third girl was examining a row of braclets on her arm, moving them in the light so that they sparkled.
Eulee greeted me boredly and told me I could seat myself, that Rikki – the waitress, I gathered – wasn't working. My heart sank – Rikki had always seemed kind to me, and I had assumed she would be my best bet for a little bit of help. I nodded at Eulee and walked slowly to my small table in the corner, my heart rate increasing when Tinka glanced up and cast a disinterested look at the new customer.
" What'll it be, anyway?" Eulee called from the counter.
" W-what?" I stuttered.
" You didn't order anything," Eulee reminded me dryly.
" Oh," I said, embarrassed. " J-just some Wattu sticks, please."
" Sure kid," Eulee muttered with a groan, heading for the kitchen in the back and grumbling about my recent patronage – I never ordered alcohol anymore.
" Geez, wattu sticks," I heard Cniala mutter. " Is the food here really that good?"
The purple-haired woman snickered.
" A-actually," I said, turning and telling myself it was now or never. Facing the girls was frightening – they all stared at me like I was some sort of bizarre alien. " I came here to ask you all something."
" Ask us something?" Tinka said, looking around at the other two. " What?" she snapped.
" I – I need your help," I said, my voice nearly cracking. " Someone's help. I live alone – and, and I'm pregnant – and – I'm going to have the baby soon. I don't know what to do." I had to stop talking, before I began crying out of desparation and unbelievable embarrassment. Eulee choose this moment to fly over to my table and drop a basket of wattu sticks in front of me.
" No kidding you're pregnant," she said, looking down at my stomach, which I hadn't bothered to conceal on this trip. " You look like you're ready to drop any moment."
" Please," I said, looking from her to the girls, " There must be someone on this planet who can help me . . ."
" Don't look at me," Eulee said, holding up her hands. " I don't know anything about human birth and I don't want to," she said with a disgusted shudder. " Bad engineering, if you ask me. But there's an orphanage on one of our moons – Corinth, I think – that's been known to help out girls like you –"
" No," I said quickly, the idea of following exactly in my mother's footsteps, returning to the orphanage as a spector of Callia Antilles the first, seeming as impossible as delievering the baby myself. " I can't do that. Its not an option." Eulee shrugged and flew back over to the counter, began wiping down the bar with a rag. I looked back to Tinka and the other girls.
" Um," Tinka said, blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth. " No thanks."
" Please," I begged, " I'll pay you. I have plenty of money."
" That's great, but I don't need money," Tinka assured me. " And anyway I hate blood." I glanced to Cniala and the other woman, but they just looked purposefully away.
" You must know someone who could help me," I said, letting the tears fall from my eyes.
" Nope," Tinka said coldly, " We don't exactly associate with mid-wives. Sorry." She gave me an icy look. " Anyway, what's your deal? You come in here all the time, acting all superior, sitting alone, like you're better than us, and now you want our help?" She scoffed. " Sorry sister."
" I never thought I was better than you!" I told her. " I only . . . I guess I was shy, I didn't feel like I was welcome . . . at your table."
" Well, you're not," she assured me. " So just buzz off. I'm sorry you got knocked up, but that's life."
When she turned around, I knew what I had to do, though the idea of it was more terrifying than simply begging as an anonymous loser.
" What if," I began, pinching my eyes shut and squeezing out a few more tears. " What if I told you it was Boba Fett's baby." Tinka whirrled around and glared at me.
" Oh please!" she said. " You've heard us – eavesdropped on us – talking about Boba, so you're trying to use him in this? Ha!"
" You don't believe me," I said, with a tiny, dark laugh, wiping some tears from my cheeks, " Of course. I didn't expect you to." I stood up, and walked to her table. She sneered at me.
" Even if it is Boba's kid," she said, " What do I care? He's probably got a boat load of them by now, but that's the way it goes when you fool around with Boba Fett. You don't exactly expect him to be a doting father, if you know what I mean." The other two at the table laughed.
" Alright, fair enough," I said, steeling myself, my heart sunken. " But please. I'm begging you. From a desparate woman, please, tell your friend Karmac to deliever a message for me. Or anyone who might see Boba."
I waited, and she seemed to be listening, though her expression hadn't softened.
" Please try to get him this message. If he doesn't care, you can all have a good laugh about the girl who thought she meant something to Boba Fett . . . but even so, please let him know that Calli is pregnant." I stopped here to sob, but pressed on, my voice shaking. " Please tell him that she's on Geonosis, and she's pregnant, and she needs help." Here I had to break off, because I was crying too hard, hurting too deeply at what I had come to, at the almost amused disbelief on Tinka's face. I stood up, whispered a barely audible 'thank you' through my tears, threw some money onto the counter for Eulee, and pushed out the doors, back into the harsh sunlight and broken buildings of the abandoned town.
Almost two weeks later, when my food was running low, when the last jug of Bantha milk was halfway gone in the cooler, I woke early to a startling pain.
" Please no," I whispered, praying that it was only a dream. Days had passed by, I had grown only more certain of my impending doom at the hands of my own body, and no word had come from Boba, no well-meaning villagers had shown up at the mouth of the cave with a human doctor. I was utterly alone, and when I looked down, the pain registering as real and as originating in my stomach region, I noticed that the sheets were soaked.
My water had broken.
" No, no, no," I chanted under my breath. " Not yet," I warned my baby, though I myself didn't know what I was waiting for. Another wave of pain rolled over me and I fell back onto my pillows, letting out a gargled scream. My eyes shifted from the side of the bed to my speeder, waiting at the entrance of the cave. I wondered if I had time. Time to make it to the orphanage and at least save my baby. My mother had made it – why not me?
And so I resolved to give in to the same forces Boba had welcomed, and let the past repeat itself.
I pulled myself out of the bed – it was hard to get my legs to work, and when the contractions came I would have to stop in my tracks, crumbling onto the floor in pain. By the time I reached the speeder they were coming faster, with less time to take steps in between. I fell against the side of the vehicle and cried, knowing that I could never propel myself into the thing in the state I was in. I let myself fall to the floor instead, and pinched my eyes shut and wailed in pail – I had thought I would be able to handle this, to pull my mind from the physical and keep myself sane and in control throughout the process. I was dead wrong – my concious reasoning evaporated, and all I could think about or feel was the extreme pain, mixed with the terror that something was wrong with my baby, that the mind-numbing pain was worse than it should be, not normal. This can't be normal, I thought, in between gasping breaths on the cold floor of the cave – this sort of torture can't be natural.
Having given up on the idea of getting into the speeder, I tried desparately to at least crawl back to my bed, and reach the extra towels and sheets that I had laid beside it. It was a slow process, and by the time I reached the bed I knew I would never be able to climb into it. Instead I tried to spread out the towels and sheets onto the floor – after a messy pile had been formed by my shaking hands, I fell onto it, defeated.
" I'm sorry," I said in a choked whisper through my pain, speaking to my baby. " My idiocy has killed us both. I made sure we'd die here waiting for him." I sobbed and curled into a ball on the sheets, giving up, letting the pain take me.
" Callia," someone suddenly said, with almost a tone of anger. I turned, opening my eyes and trying to find the woman who had spoken. What my eyes met was certainly a delusion, though at the time, in my barely concious state, I was sure it was the ghost of my mother. She was a small, blonde woman, with my nose, small shoulders and pale skin. " You've got to help me here. Don't give up. Help me. Help me get you on the bed. Come on, stand up. Get up."
I let the spector of my mother lift me under my arms, and used my weak, shaking legs to propel myself toward the bed. When she dropped me there I realized she wasn't my mother at all – but actually a large, green Twi'lek woman wearing a white apron. She efficiently positioned me on the bed, and motioned to other Twi'lek women, who were suddenly filling the cave, to pat my forehead with washclothes and tilt my head back so that I could drink something.
" It might be too late for the pain medication to take effect," she said. " Ipa only told us this morning that her friend needed help. We got here as soon as we could."
" Ipa?" I muttered, sure then that I was hallucinating the whole thing – possibly even dead already.
" I'm here, my Meniska!" I heard my old friend's voice call, and she poked her head around the shoulders of the nurses who were working around my bed. " I told you that I would repay you when you needed help the most!" she reminded me. " I was meditating last night and I saw you in pain in my vision. I got our best royal physicians and midwives, and we left for Geonosis as soon as we could! I've told them all about your bravery and what you did for me –"
The green Twi'lek, who seemed to be the head nurse, barked something at her in what I guessed was the Twi'lek language, and Ipa slunk away.
" Alright," she said, returning to my language. " Like I said, Callia, we're going to need your help. Its almost time for you to push."
I groaned in pain and jerked in the bed, prompting two nurses to rush over and hold my arms gentley in place.
" Fine!" I screamed, " Just get this thing out of me!" All sentimental feelings toward the baby were momentarily lost.
" Not yet," the head nurse warned. " Wait just a bit longer."
" Ughh, why?" I moaned, " To torture me further?"
The nurses muttered together in their language, and I was sure they were proclaiming me less noble than Ipa had described, but I didn't care. I cursed and turned against their grips as they held my arms in place.
" Mother, mother," I cried, " Where did she go? I want my mother!"
" I'm sorry, but we're the best you've got," the head nurse snapped, " Now I need you to push, Callia."
I tried as hard as I could, but I was weak and frustrated, and she instructed me to push harder.
" Unnh, I can't!" I shrieked, but I tried again.
I heard something very loud going on on the other side of the cave, and some of the nurses turned to see what it was as a warm breeze moved over the bed.
" What's that?"
" Another of our ships?"
" We only brought one," the head nurse said, still concentrating on me. " Push now!" she said, " Again, there. Anyway, if it was one from our party they would have parked outside with our ship. Ipa will take care of it, ladies, now concentrate. Push again now, Callia."
" I AM!" I shrieked. " I'm pushing, nothing's happening!"
The head nurse seemed to have resolved to ignore my comments from then on, and didn't respond. I could hear Ipa talking to a man on the other side of the cave, and his Twi'lek accent was missing, so I wondered if she'd found a human doctor to attend me. At the moment I was projecting my horrible pain onto the Twi'lek nurses, and wishing them away, so I was heartened by the idea of new help. Later, when my faculties returned, I would realize I owed my life to them.
Instead of a doctor, Ipa poked her head through the barrier of nurses again along with a face I would normally have been overjoyed to see, but which, that day, was immediately damned to the dimensional hells.
" Boba," I growled. " Oh, how dare you – uhhhhh! – show your face here!"
" Calli," he said, staring down at me, " I . . . I . . ." Not only had I never seen Boba at a loss for words, I had never, and would never again, see him look frightened. But at the sight of me spread on our bed and surronded by blood, covered in sweat and thrashing in pain, he looked utterlly terrified.
" Shut up, shut up!" I railed at him. " You have nothing to say to me – you – uh-huhhhhhh! You – you bastard – off, off doing who know – arrrghhhh! – who knows what and sticking me with this thing, leaving me –"
" Push, Calli!" the heard nurse continued throughout this string of obsenities, " Push hard now! You're almost done!"
" Calli I'm so sorry," Boba cried, reaching for my arm with a hand that was still gloved in armor. " I didn't know – I had no idea – they just told me – I came as fast as I could, as soon as I heard –"
At this point I was beyond insulting Boba, though I wanted to punch his lights out for suddenly appearing to give a damn about me. All I could do was wail in pain and push, push, as the head nurse demanded, until she started telling me excitedly that she could see the head.
" Well grab it!" I screamed, " Get it out!"
" One more push, Calli," she said, " Just one more and its all over."
I sobbed at the very thought of the pain ending, and shook my head.
" I can't, I can't," I said, exhasted. " I'm too tired, I can't do it anymore."
" Yes you can!" the head nurse shouted. She glared at Boba. " You're the father?" she shouted. He nodded, wide-eyed.
" Then encourage her!" she screamed at him.
" Calli," he said, lowering his lips to my ear. " You can do it." His lips were trembling.
If Boba Fett can be scared, I thought with an exhasted sigh, then I guess Callia Antilles can be strong. I pushed, hard, once more, screaming from the pit of my stomach as I did.
I heard a baby crying, and though my body was still in agony, the thought of the pain snapped away. The nurses were busying themselves with the new arrival, my baby, cutting the umbillical cord, cleaning him, and all the while I was reaching for him while Ipa bounced around happily, shouting, 'it's a boy!'.
" There we are, there we are," the head nurse said, craddling him and finally handing him to me. I forgot Boba, the Twi'leks, everyone in the room and everything in the world when my baby was in my arms. He was tiny, red, and crying at the top of his lungs. He had a tiny tuft of black hair, Boba's handsome features, my pale skin, and, when he finally opened them as the crying subsided, my blue eyes. I cuddled him to me and cried on his tiny head, kissed his cheeks, and beamed around the room with happiness as the nurses began to clean up. Boba sat at my side, staring down at our baby, dumbstruck, tilting his head from side to side as if to try and comphrehend this tiny creature.
Ipa plopped down on the other side of the bed and began cooing over the baby and his cute-ness, asking me what I would name him.
" I, I don't know," I said, " I think Boba Jr. is out of the question," I said, giving Boba a look. He managed a shaky smile. " What do you think?" I asked him.
" You want me to name him?" he asked me in disbelief.
" Well," I said, still a little annoyed with him despite the fact that my pain was fading. " You are his father."
Boba looked taken aback by this fact, and scooted a bit closer to the baby and I, slowly taking off his gloves, untying his breastplate, and reaching down to remove the rest of his armor. Ipa took the hint, kissed both the baby and I on the forehead, and got up to leave.
" Ipa," I said, before she could go. " You saved my life, and my baby's. I don't know how to thank you –"
" Please," Ipa said, holding up a hand, " There is no need for thanks. We are sisters in fate, and because you saved my life, there is nothing that I wouldn't do for you." She smiled. " We'll talk later," she said, joining the nurses, who were tsking at my nearly empty pantry and making a list of market goods the baby and I would need. I looked back to Boba, who was studying our baby carefully.
" I only just found out this morning that you were pregnant," he said, " Karmac had just come back to Corasaunt the night before; he went out drinking, and when he came home at dawn he mentioned that there was a girl on Geonosis who said she was going to have my baby . . . he thought it was a joke or something. I turned on my heels the moment he said it, Calli, got my ship and flew here. I'm so sorry – I'm so sorry. If these people hadn't been here . . . I might have been too late . . ."
" Boba," I said, " I want to be angry with you . . . but there was no way for you to know. I'm just glad he told you in time . . . for you see to our son be born." I nuzzled our baby to me, and was surprised when Boba, who so far seemed put off by the presense of the infant, reached forward to stroke his tiny head.
" Yeah, our son," he said, smiling, " My son," he laughed a little bit, " Not even a clone. A real son. And he has black hair." He looked up into my eyes. " Like me."
" Boba," I said, smiling, any resentment toward him lifting. " Well," I snapped my eyes away from him, determined not to be taken in again, to let myself believe he might stay this time. " Any idea for a name?"
" I always liked the name Wedge," Boba said with a shrug.
" Wedge?" I said with a laugh. Not my first choice, but better, I supposed, than what I'd feared he might suggest: Jango II. " Wedge, then," I said, smooching his little nose. Boba laid down beside me, and we stayed there on the pillows of our old bed for some time, staring with disbelief and pride at our son, Wedge Antillies.
" How do you know Karmac, anyway?" Boba asked after some time, when little Wedge had fallen asleep in my arms.
" Oh, long story," I said, deciding I could keep some mystery for myself, too. Boba smirked and gave me a look.
" You know," he said, " You're kind of amazing." I scoffed.
" How so?"
" I mean," he said, " I don't know. I showed up here, worried you'd be dying alone in labour, and here you have this whole team of Twi'leks caring for you – not to mention one who says you saved her life – I guess there's a lot I don't know about you, Calli."
I laughed at the fact that he could misconstrue this unbelievable stroke of luck as something I'd carefully arranged for myself – but I let him make the mistake. It was true, though, that he knew about as much about my life in the present as I did about his, maybe even less thanks to the information I had from the tavern's customers.
" Well," I said, looking away from him, back to Wedge's sleeping features, " I guess its just too bad you didn't take the time to learn my secrets. We could have been amazing together."
He was quiet for a moment, and then gingerly draped an arm over me, and around the tiny bundle of Wedge in my arms. He scooted closer and pressed his face against the nape of my neck, a breath away from the tiny baby.
" I think," he whispered, " We're pretty amazing together anyway. I mean," he reached up to smooth the tiny black hairs on Wedge's head. " Look what we did without even trying." I buried my face against the top of his head, pressed my nose into his mop of curly hair and breathed him in.
Oh Boba, I thought, not daring to speak it. I give in, you've got me. Please don't go.