PIETT'S CAPTIVE

PART ONE

After the first night in Piett's room, I was not surprised to be taken back to the women's quarters the next morning; nor was I surprised when the same guard arrived that very evening, to escort me to Piett.

Both of us remained poker faced in the lift. I had no idea what the guard felt, whether he was examining me out of the corner of his eye to see what could be under that long dark cloak that interested his Admiral so. I scarcely know what I felt myself—just that my heart was pounding with excitement and apprehension.

When Piett's door closed behind me I stood there silently, drinking in the sight of him in his uniform, bending slightly over a com board. He looked up. There was a pause.

"Come in," he said unnecessarily. I stepped forward, undid the clasp at my neck, and let the cloak fall. Underneath I was wearing a long, simple sleeveless gown of pleated pink silk. The effect was all I could have wished.

"Come here," said Piett, and I did. He held out his arms and I melted into them. Whimpering with delight, I accepted his kiss. An electric thrill went through me when his tongue touched mine. Wordlessly I clung to him, stroked the back of his neck, played with ears, and wriggled to the touch of his hands on my back. We were both mightily aroused by now: I could feel his erection hard against me, hear his heavy breathing. He pushed the gown off my shoulders and in seconds it lay in a silken puddle on the carpet. I wore nothing underneath but panties; they were soon off. His hands roamed over my breasts, making me moan with desire. A few short steps to the bed, and he pressed me down onto the warm quilts. My hands trailed down his arms, barely able to let go of him long enough to let him undress; and in a few seconds he was there with me.. The long kiss of our bare bodies was shockingly exciting. Neither of us could wait another second. He poised himself above me and I pulled him near. His stiff cock touched me, filled me, making me cry out with sheer pleasure. My heels slid up the backs of his legs as I opened myself to him; my hands explored the length of his back, his shoulders, his neck, tried to pull him nearer, nearer.

He was moving, slowly, slowly, driving me to the edge of control. Writhing, I pleaded for more, but he held back. I tried to rise up against him, but his hands on my pelvis held me down, forcing me to surrender to his rhythms. Slowly, slowly, he entered me and withdrew, ever more slowly, until I was near the screaming point. Then he stopped completely, pulled away from me, and moved down my body, licking and suckling my nipples and circling his tongue in my navel.

I refused this torment. "More," I gasped, and he came back to me, sliding his cock all the way into me with a smooth thrust. Unbearable pleasure took me and carried me past the point of no return. Now he gave himself to me, deeper, faster, piling sensation upon sensation, both of us lost in the ecstasy of a long, shuddering climax.

Lying beside him I was afraid to speak. Something very strong was happening here. I was more than a little surprised with myself, at my responsiveness to this man. What must he think of me? Five seconds after entering the room I was in his arms, panting for him! And yet.. his own responsiveness was pretty definite, too. I turned my face up to look at him, and found him looking at me. I touched his cheek.

"You are amazing," I said. In answer, he kissed me.

"I was inspired," he said.

PART TWO

Late into the night we lay talking. After we slept, and morning came, I lay curled up in the sheets and watched him dress. He was well aware of my watching him, and of the thoughts in my mind as he covered up that body I liked so well. I could read amusement in his eyes as he came to the bedside and stood there, hands behind his back, looking down at me solemnly as if reviewing the troops. He barely flinched as I reached out and trailed my fingers down his thigh to the top of his tall black boot.

"Behave yourself, Kiremm," he commanded, with a smile.

"Impossible, Andries," said I.

He sat down on the bed. "I know it would be boring for you to stay here all day, but you are not allowed to run about the ship." He lifted my chin with one forefinger. "Rebels must be kept imprisoned. So you'll spend the days with the women, and the nights with me, if you want to. If that is all right with you."

I rose swiftly to a sitting position and took his head in my hands. "That's what I want," I whispered, and we joined in a long kiss. He had to pull himself away from me, but at last he did. "Until later," he said firmly, and he left.

I spent some time in the `fresher bathing and tidying myself. When I came out into the room, I was astonished to find a plain grey uniform of leggings and tunic lying on the bed. There was also a neatly packaged makeup kit. Well, well, I thought. It seems I'm moving in. As soon as I had dressed there was discreet knock on the door. It was my guard again.

"Admiral Piett instructs me to escort you to your quarters," he said. Away we went, and certainly I was much less noticeable in the grey clothes than in swirling silk. When I asked if there was a way we could peek at the bridge, the guard hesitated—I could see him weighing the wisdom of indulging the Admiral's captive. He led me down various narrow corridors and around corners until we emerged at a narrow door overlooking the nerve centre of the Star Destroyer.

I spotted my admiral at once, pacing slowly along the rank of vidscreens, bending forward for a word with one trooper or another, moving on with his hands behind his back. A wave of affection and desire swept over me, and I grasped the railing before me with hands that trembled slightly. At that moment, Piett looked up and saw me. His expression did not change, but he straightened slightly and looked steadily into my eyes. At that moment I felt a surge of energy, a bond of love arch between us like a beam of invisible power, so strong that it seemed everyone on the ship must feel and see it. But nobody did—nobody, that is, but one.

Across the bridge, Darth Vader turned his head. I believe he sensed the bond first, and only then saw the two people it united.

Vader turned away again. That was all; but I felt a cold chill. Hastily I withdrew out of sight, and followed my guard with downcast eyes. I was terrified. Had I exposed my beloved Piett to danger? Too well I knew that Vader was not a commander who would put up with any sort of divided loyalties.

PART THREE

In the women's quarters there were only a few of the rebel captives; grey-haired Icho was sitting with Tallie. I joined them. They did not ask me where I had been, but I knew they knew. There was a restraint between us. I had hardly known them before our capture, and they were well aware that I had been captured a second time since my arrival on this ship—this time by my heart. As women, they sympathized; as rebels, they were doubtful.

Neither of them, though, were fighters. Icho, a hardworking and devoted nurse, had been working beside me in the sick bay aboard our rebel ship when the stormtroopers burst in; Tallie, seven months pregnant, was being ferried to a rest planet to join her husband. About this husband Tallie had refused to speak. I guessed that there was danger in letting anyone know whose she was; someone important, no doubt, who could be blackmailed, threatened, by her loss?

I took Tallie's hand.. There were lines of anxiety on her young face. My heart ached for her. What a time to be among relative strangers and surrounded by enemies! At least Icho and I had the skills to take care of her if we had to. It worried me that we had been refused the services of the medical droids on the destroyer. Perhaps it was just as well. Who could trust the Imperial drugs and surgeons?

"How are you feeling, Tallie?" I asked.

"All right," she said. "I have a few contractions now and then."

"That's normal," I reassured her.

"Do you think we will be landed somewhere soon?" she said anxiously.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "But maybe I can find out." We left it at that.

That night as I entered Piett's quarters I was extremely nervous. I was not reassured by the sight of him standing stiffly with his back to me. He turned sideways and gestured me to the armchair, still without looking at me. There was long silence.

"You should not have come to the bridge," he said eventually.

"I know," I said miserably.

He came and stood before me. "Lord Vader spoke to me. He said that I seemed quite taken with my little prize. He hoped I would not be distracted from my duties. He said—" here Piett broke off and turned away. He stared fixedly at the screen, clenching and unclenching his fists. Frightened, I rose and took a step toward him. "Andries," I whispered.

At this he whirled and faced me. Grimfaced, he said, "Lord Vader thought it an error on his part to allow you too much say in your...disposal. he suggested that your company be...shared. With my men."

I gasped. "No, no! Admiral, you can't! You can't! Don't do this!" Blinded by tears, I reached out for him—and was swept into his embrace.

He clutched me tightly, kissing my neck and mouth. "Never, never," he muttered hoarsely. "You are mine. Mine! He can't make me do it. Never." He wiped away my tears.

"I have requested leave," he said. "We'll go to a rest planet. There's nothing there but a base and some beaches. We'll have some time, you'll be out of danger. We'll be together. No one can hurt you there. I won't let anyone hurt you."

He was as good as his word. Within a week his shuttle landed us on Rima, and from the little Imperial garrison a land roller took us a long way down the coast. There followed days of lazy loafing in the warm sun, wonderful lovemaking before the evening fire, dawn walks by the sea.

Then one day we swam in the warm ocean next to our cabin, feeding bits of leftover lunch to the brightly coloured reef fish that swam a few feet offshore. Afterward I dried off and lay down on a blanket in the sand. Piett lay down beside me. I shivered as he moved aside the cloth of my sarong.

He saw, in the brilliant sunlight, what he had not noticed before; the two wavy, silvery scars, one on each side of my belly just above my hipbones.

"My battle scars," I smiled. His face went serious.

"You've had a child?"

"Yes. I was very young. She's with my mother. It hurt me to leave her, but we each choose to protect our children in our own way." I said no more.

"Her father?"

"Dead."

Again there was silence between us. Eventually I broke it, asking softly, "Have you any children?"

"No," he said, and there was a faraway look in his eyes. So much we still didn't know about each other! And yet... the same thought must have come to us simultaneously—we have found each other at last. All the past is swept away. Piett leaned forward and kissed me. Smiling, I let my hand slide down his body to his groin. Gently I touched his sac.

"I can't even feel your plugs," I said, "or see the scars."

"Plugs?" he said blankly.

"What do you call them, the little dams they put in the boy's vas at puberty? Can't have soldiers littering babies all over the gal..." my smile died. "Are you serious, Piett? Aren't you wearing plugs?"

"We don't do that," he stammered. "The women take care of..."

I sat up with a jerk. "You mean you're -fertile-??" I cried.

"You mean -you're- fertile?" he cried.

It may seem incredible that neither of us had brought this up before, but such is the power of cultural assumptions. We gaped at each other. What had we done?

"Those decontamination routines they put us through when they captured us... that was the last time we were allowed any medical attention," I said thoughtfully. "Did they give us anything to turn off our cycles? No, that's not it, I cycled just a couple of weeks ago...." and unbidden, my medical knowledge supplied me with the knowledge that I had repeated ten thousand times, it seems, in teaching clinics for young women. A cycle that started two weeks ago means that your most fertile time is... right now.

Dreamily I put my hand on my belly. At this very moment, my body must be swarming with millions of invisible swimmers, struggling toward the chemical call of the one cell that was calling them all to her. Even now, perhaps, the mystical union was taking place in the warm darkness.

I looked at Piett with new eyes. So this was the one, then. That occasion, that I had hoped for a long time would come again, had come. But if not.. would he now pull back, refuse to touch me, hope to escape this commitment? I held my breath.

Piett put his hand over mine.

"No, we'll not separate," he answered my unspoken thought. "If it has already happened, I am the happiest man alive. You will be truly mine."

"What if ... what if it hasn't happened....yet?"

"Then we will make it happen," whispered my admiral, and he lay down beside me and his mouth covered mine.

PART FOUR

Two weeks had passed at our idyllic beach cabin, two weeks of heavenly forgetfulness, when a land roller appeared, a trooper handed a message to Piett, and everything changed. "There's been a battle. Get your things together." With a rush he donned his uniform and hurried me back to the garrison.

There was a confusion of shuttles, taking off and landing. A couple of ships were crippled, scorched with explosion damage. I had only a moment's glimpse of the chaos before I was snatched away from Piett's side, hustled at blaster point through the main building, thrust into a room and locked in.

"Kiremm! Thank goodness you're here." It was Icho, coming toward me from a huddle of rebel women. Tallie, I saw, was among them. Icho drew me aside. Her motherly calm was unperturbed, but she was clearly shaken. "We were just landed here, the star destroyer was sounding alarms and firing off fighters in all directions. We didn't see any rebel ships but the Imperials have been landing damaged fighters and wounded men for hours." I was furious. Why had the Imperials waited so long to get these captives off their warship? Now, in the midst of battle and danger, anything could happen to us. We should have been landed at some city planet long ago. I cursed myself for my indiscipline. Piett's love; the wine of forgetfulness. I had paid no attention to the crisis of duty that would inevitably come. Yet now that the Empire had claimed him again, what could I do? I was as helpless as the day I had been taken. Still... now, perhaps, he would have to find a way for us....

I tried my best to keep up the spirits of the other women, particularly Tallie, who seemed pale and uneasy. Trying to appear relaxed, I drew some embroidery out of my bag and began to stitch, but it was impossible to ignore the noise outside.

Through the barred windows I watched the transports touch down. Troopers rushed forward with litters, offloaded the wounded, disappeared round the corner of the building to the infirmary. I felt pity for these injured youths, enemies though they were. Perhaps I could help? But it was useless to offer my services. They'd never trust a rebel doctor to treat their own, and certainly not a woman. I sat down and picked up my needlework again.

Besides, my own had need of me. Tallie was pacing up and down and frowning in a way I didn't like. It was more than a month till her time. She said nothing, but I could read anxiety in her eyes. Doubtless the getting-ready contractions, I thought, watching Tallie disappear into the bathroom. So many young girls over-interpret every sensation the first time around... and as I was comforting myself with these complacent thoughts, I heard a cry from the bathroom.

I dropped my work and ran. Tallie was on her knees, clutching her belly and wailing. "It hurts! It hurts! Something's there!" she sobbed. Others were gathering in the doorway, whispering and exclaiming. I raised Tallie's gown and my heart went cold. Bulging from between her legs was a dark swelling. It was the bag of waters, stained green with meconium; the baby's bowel movement. A sign of fetal distress. I knelt there transfixed for an instant, remembering something read long ago; a professor asking the midwifery students, "what does it mean if the child passes meconium before the birth?" and the young girl who answered, "that the child is frightened." When the others laughed, the professor said it was not that bad an answer. For this child had reason to be frightened. Dimly, inside the dark bulge, I could see two little feet. And I could see a loop of cord.

Quickly I controlled my fear. Action was needed now. I dropped to my knees. "How long have you been having pains, Tallie?" I asked, as my hand went to her belly. "All day... I didn't think it was anything, it's too soon... what's happening? Is it coming? Is that the baby's head I feel?" she gasped.

"No, Tallie, your baby is coming feet first," I said. "I think your cervix is partly open, and the baby's feet have slipped out, inside the bag of waters. Unfortunately I think the umbilical cord has slipped out too," I said.

"What does that mean?" she asked fearfully.

"Well, it's dangerous for the baby, because the cord will get pinched between the baby and the passage, and then the baby won't get enough oxygen," I told her. "We need to get the baby born right away." I gestured to the others. "Get the droids to bring a litter, we've got to get her to the infirmary fast."

"Tallie," I said to her, "it will be much safer for the baby if you get on your hands and knees and stay that way. That will keep the weight of the baby off the cord until you can have an operation to get the baby out from above." She nodded and swallowed, leaning forward onto her hands. Her face contorted, and I felt her belly harden again. The contraction was a strong one. Stars, how much time did we have?

Not much. And I hadn't told her the half of it. Five weeks premature meant likely breathing troubles even without birth asphyxia. The head would probably not be too big for the pelvis, small as Tallie was; but such a small head could well get stuck in a partly dilated cervix; then nothing could save the baby. An immediate section was her best chance.

It seemed to take hours for the dithering guards to unlock the doors and let in the litter droids. Somehow we got Tallie, kneeling, on the litter and started down the halls. Troopers were rushing to and fro, there was a lot of shouting somewhere, and by the time our escort reached the infirmary there was bedlam. Wounded men were lying about moaning, some in bloodstained bandages; a clump of white-faced troopers was standing by the doors and medical officers were shouting directions at the work droids.

Not a good time to bring in an obstetric emergency, I though grimly. Is there anybody here with any training? Well, perhaps I could assist the surgical droids, or just help resuscitate the baby, who was certainly going to need it. Directing the guards to lower the litter to the floor, I collared the closest med-aide. I need to speak to the doctor," I said urgently.

"I can assist you," said the droid comfortably.

"No, I need the head human doctor," I snapped. "This woman needs urgent surgery."

"The surgeons are reserved for the wounded soldiers, " said the droid. Angrily I pushed past him and grabbed a human med officer by the arm. "Look, I am a trained doctor but I can't deal with this. It's a premature breech with a prolapsed cord. She needs a section immediately."

"You'll have to deal with it," he said curtly, freeing himself. "I have strict orders. No tech care to be wasted on women."

"What?" I shouted. Controlling myself with difficulty, I lowered my voice so as not to frighten Tallie. "Didn't you hear me? It's a double footling breech with the cord down. You've got to help her. If you don't operate the babe's got no chance at all."

It was at that moment that I heard a dreaded, familiar wheeze. A deep voice came from the doorway.

"Obey my orders, Commander. See to the wounded."

"Yes, my Lord," saluted the med officer. He turned away. Grimly I faced Darth Vader.

"My Lord," I pleaded. "is there not one wounded man who can wait twenty minutes? Give me an anesthetist droid, some instruments, I can do it myself, I beg of you."

"No. My men come first," was the inexorable answer.

"No, my Lord," I said firmly. "Children come first."

"Not this one," he said, turned on his heel, and left.

I stood astounded. He wanted this child to die! He wanted to humble me with his cruelty, but he had something against this unborn baby! What in the universe.....

I turned desperately to the litter. Tallie's face was tightening at the onset of another rush; then her eyes opened wide and she let out a peculiar grunting cry.. I knew that sound. Kneeling beside her, I took Tallie's hand and looked into her eyes. "Are you feeling like pushing, honey?" I asked her softly. She nodded, and at the same time strained down involuntarily. I knew how impossible it is to resist that overwhelming demand. There was no more time to plan; the tide of events was sweeping on.

"Tallie," I said as gently as I could. "Look at me." She tried to focus. "Is your child's father a Jedi?"

Through her pain, Tallie's eyes searched my face. She must have found enough there to trust, for she nodded her head. So that was it. Darth Vader would have no rival anywhere near him, no newborn Force that he could not warp and twist.. He would throttle this little life, not with own hands, but with a coincidence of timing and circumstance, and thus dodge responsibility in his own mind. And I must do what I could to thwart him. I had little hope of success ; but I had to try.

I got to my feet and addressed the dithering aide. "Have you got any sterile gloves?" I asked.

"Gloves?" stammered the droid. "We don't have gloves. The humans put their hands in the cleaner and push the spray-barrier button, over there," it gestured.

I rapidly followed his directions, wincing as a gooey substance sprayed from the recessed nozzle and coated my hands. It dried almost at once, fortunately, and I came back to Tallie's side.

"I have to feel inside, honey. Lie down now. Is that pain over?" I asked her.

"I think so. Stars, what's happening? Is it coming?" she gasped.

"Soon, now," I said, gesturing to Icho to raise Tallie's gown. Gently I inserted one hand and at once I knew everything. Beyond the bag with its collection of feet and cord was the child's bottom and trunk. She was fully dilated—and as the realization hit home, Tallie pushed, and the bag of waters broke.

Green fluid poured over the bed. Both feet appeared at the vulva, and the thick blue twists of the loop of cord peeped between them. I touched the cord; mercifully, it was still pulsating, and when I stroked one tiny foot, the baby pulled it back inside!

Tallie looked down. "Why is the water green?" she asked fearfully. "That's the baby's bowel movement, that's normal for a breech," I comforted her. But it isn't, really, not at this stage; and the baby was frighteningly small. I tried to still the trembling of my hands.

"Aaaaaah! " groaned Tallie.

"Tallie!" I called to her. "You must work hard now, to get the baby born as fast as possible. We're going to help you stand." I called to the gaping group of guards huddling by the wall. "I need two strong men. You and you, " I beckoned to a couple of uniformed boys. The two fellows looked this way and that, but at my impatient gesture they came closer and managed to haul Tallie to a sitting position, one standing at each side of her.

"Lift her to her feet," I commanded. "Hold her arm over your shoulder, that's right, and your arm round her waist. Let her bend her knees a bit if she wants but don't let her fall." The two did as they were bid, lifting the groaning woman to a swaying semi-crouch. As another contraction seized her, she gasped and tried to fall forward, and they needed all their strength to support the dead weight of her body. They staggered, looking a bit wild-eyed as this naked, sweating woman tossed her hair into their eyes and clutched their necks. Never before had they seen with their own eyes what a woman's work can be, and they were bewildered.

Meanwhile, with a maximum of agitation, the aide droid had brought me a pile of towels, a big sheet, what seemed to be some clamps, and a complicated helmet of some sort which he assured me was an oxygen device, connected by a hose to a wall socket.

"What the hell's this?" I demanded. "I need just the pipe, dammit!" And with that I wrenched the attached hose right off the helmet. There was a satisfying hiss, and I took a snort of gas. It seemed to be oxygen, all right. "Hold this," I snapped, handing the line to the droid.

As Tallie pushed, more and more of the baby's feet and legs emerged, hanging out of her body. She pushed; meconium squeezed out of the baby's bottom, a thick green blob. She moaned and went limp, and hastily I spread sheets between her feet.

There was whispering behind me. "What's that purple swelling?" someone said. "It's the scrotum," I said. "You're having a little boy, Tallie. His balls get kind of swollen because of the pressure, it's perfectly normal." Tallie didn't look down, but hung between her supporters with her eyes shut. Then again she was pushing, and now the child's body was sliding out. The navel appeared, and then the shoulderblades. The cord was now ominously slack and the baby completely limp. The droid leaned forward; I slapped his hands away.

"Hands off the breech," I quoted. The old saying was obviously news to him, but he subsided. Nervously I waited another moment, readying a dry towel to loop round the child's wet body. Now it was time; I reached carefully up and found an elbow, delivered one arm, then the other, and the baby was hanging by the neck.

"Now you've really got to work, Tallie. Seconds count," I instructed. "Push your hardest." She did. Ever so gently I guided the baby till its back was directly facing me, and now at last I could see the hairline. One minute, I told myself, you have one minute—less, really, since this baby has already gone without much oxygen for a long time.

"Now squat, Tallie. Squat," I commanded her firmly. The sweating soldiers lowered her a few inches. Tensely I knelt between her outflung thighs and allowed my training to take over my hands. The baby's torso lay along my right arm; with my left hand I pressed above Tallie's pubis to keep the child's head flexed down, with my right hand I reached into Tallie's vagina. Third finger in the mouth, second and fourth high on the cheekbones. Keep out of the eyesockets. Pull down ever so gently. Keep the head flexed. Lift my right arm up. Up, up. Exhort mother to push, push. The head bows down, keep the neck straight, don't bend the neck, the head sliding through the curve of the pelvis, not stuck, coming down, the mouth born. Left hand snatching up the thin tube. One end in my mouth, one in the little boy's, and suck. Thin green meconium fluid mounted up the tube. Pull out of baby's mouth and blow. Back in baby's nostrils and suck. Out and blow. The nose born. The brow coming. Coming, coming, not stuck, thank all the stars and spirits, the brow out, the crown of the head stretching, stretching the mother's vulva, and out. "Lower her to her knees," I murmured, the men did so, and between Tallie's feet the child lay limp and voiceless, not blue as they usually are before the first breath but white as death. There is no consciousness here, I thought to myself, and I was aware of a dark sending of triumph in the doorway beyond me.

"It's white," blurted the droid.

"That's very bad," I murmured. "He's in shock." Leaning forward, ignoring the cord traveling intact inside the mother, I was rapidly toweling the baby and saying to myself, dry, position, assess.... "Count the minutes and announce each minute as it passes, " I said to nobody in particular. "Hold that gas tube right next to my mouth." I took the stethoscope and listened for a few seconds. There was a heartbeat. Very, very slow, but there. The baby was still alive.

I saw nobody, heard nothing, only knew the moment and the child under my hands as I crouched over it. My mouth over the child's and I blew, using just the pressure of my inflated cheeks. One and two and one and two--- must be fifteen seconds now—listen for the heart—horribly slow, deadly slow-- got to get the cardiac output up--- I folded my thumb and two fingers into my hand, held two stiff fingers to the baby's breastbone and started compressing the child's chest, twice a second. One and two and breathe. One and two and breathe. One and two and breathe. One and two and breathe. Was that about thirty seconds? Stop and listen. The heart rate was a bit faster. Stop compressing. Breathe. One and two and one and two and.... "one minute". The baby was not moving or breathing. One and two and ... I stopped to listen again and when I stopped there was a gasp and the baby's chest inflated by itself. I held the oxygen next to his nostrils. He breathed again. A tide of pink suffused the little face and spread down the torso.

I rubbed his legs and feet. "Come on baby, come on baby." I'd done this many times before and I always exhort the little person to work, to struggle, to try. For a moment the little soul hesitated on the threshold of life... and then there was a cry. The baby drew up its arms and legs and began to cry more loudly. Life poured into the child fully and completely. My hands traveled up and down his back and belly, stimulating him, but he knew now how to do it. He had won through.

Somehow I knew the baby's feelings, being fed to my understanding by the Force in the room. There was a frustrated rage trying to encircle the triumph here; then the baby effortlessly brushed it aside. I heard a babble of excited voices. Tallie was reaching for her son, touching him, the two soldiers were kneeling, staring with tears in their eyes. I looked up at the door and there was Lord Vader, one hand a fist, the other clutching the doorjamb in a fierce grip. The black mask didn't show anything but the fists did; he had lost the fight. He could not drive the Force out of this newborn child.

I wrapped the baby in a towel. He opened his eyes, dark blue and wandering as they always are, fixing on my face as if to say thank you, for the oxygen and the breaths, for bringing him through. I put him in his mother's arms and dealt with the cord. There was an enormous gush of blood as the placenta came out, and more babbling from the alarmed droid, but soon Tallie was lying on the litter again with her son in her arms. Wearily I turned away, drying my arms with the last towel, and once again I saw Lord Vader in the doorway, and beside him was my Admiral Piett.

I felt the bond of love leap between us as it had on the flight deck. Never had I felt so close to him. Was it because I had shown a woman's strength, an ability that suited the moment as a commander's should? He gazed at me, smiling. "Amazing," he murmured. Yes, he was admiring me, not just the exhausted young mother.

Vader turned his black mask slowly to Piett, then to me. There was questioning probe in my mind—and suddenly Vader discovered what my body already knew, what the newborn infant had tried to share with me, but my mind had just realized. The changes I had felt within for a week or two—why had I not recognized them? I was pregnant.

A flood of joy swept over me. The rightness of it, the wonderfulness of it! Here in this warship, human life and love coming forth, announcing themselves! Vader's fury faded out of my consciousness. I have Piett's love within me now, I said to myself, and nothing can ever separate us again.