DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc, 20th Century Fox, Timothy Zahn, Barbara Hambly, YKW and the other writers of the expanded Star Wars Universe. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Luke saw a small light in front of him. It was only a pinprick, hardly visible in the harsh green glow of his lightsaber. The only reason he saw it was because it was a brilliant blue, and blinking quickly.
He shut down the lightsaber for a second and reached out through the Force to try and find the distance. Either it was an electrical device, the mouth of the cave was incredibly far away, or it was a this planet's version of a spice spider and he was about to get chomped.
His mind touched no life--okay, spider option out. It didn't feel that far away--couldn't be an exit. But it didn't feel like an electrical device--actually, it was rather soft against his fingers, like it was chemical residue or maybe a piece of sugar. Luke pressed against it hard and some of the black gave way, making the blue brighter. He kept scraping and scraping and the blue got bigger and bigger until it was big enough to light the entire room. Something was behind the blue "stone"--he couldn't think of a better word--and it didn't look like it was supposed to be there.
Then it hit him. This was a stasis block.
Luke ran his finger along the edge. It was so strange-- smooth like stone, and even soft, but when he pulled his hand away none of the blue substance clung to his fingers. It was an odd illusion, but it made some sense. It was almost like the block was made from--hard light. Like his lightsaber, only not.
He used to think that impossible. Obviously someone had proved him and the rest of the galaxy wrong. Of course, he doubted that that mattered much to the creature frozen inside the block. And looking at the blue too hard hurt his eyes.
He ignited his lightsaber again and made sure that he was at the edge of the block before he began cutting. He was careful to get a good inch of the stone between his blade and the block--no telling what would happen if the two substances--so much alike and yet so different in purpose and nature--touched. He'd wait to find out. He didn't have any intentions of making this place his tomb.
The rocks were moving rather well. Mara could taste a little bit of the "sugar" residue in the back of her throat, but paid it little attention. Callista was stronger and quicker than she gave her credit for. She had more rocks moved by hand than Mara had with the Force. Of course, Mara was holding back. No way some Force- begotten misfit was going to show her up---
She stopped herself. What was wrong with her head? It didn't feel right, like she was falling asleep and her baser thoughts were getting the best of her. She felt so heavy, like she just wanted to lie down and stay there, watch the world pass over her head. Maybe if she could get her Force-powers to focus, she'd make herself float. She'd float all over the place, never walking again, never having to, because she could FLOAT, freeze it all to Hoth....
"Mara?" Callista's voice was distant, like she was talking through rock. Why was the ground so close? Oh, right, she was sitting down. Maybe she should lie down--the ground still seemed too far away.
Callista watched as Mara's knees went out from under her and she sat herself on a flat rock, then put her head down beside her, her eyes shut and her breath thready. Callista looked up, over Mara's head. There was a nice opening that the cave-in had caused in one of the previously sealed walls. A nice sparkly white stream slid out of it, like sand in an hourglass. It powdered into the air and made a cloud that was dancing about Mara's head.
Callista pulled a thick cloth over her mouth. No sense taking any chances--Mara was getting out of here. Besides, the mouth of the cave didn't look so stable from the inside. Tying the cloth into a stoud knot, Callista proceeded to pick her way over the rocky ground toward Mara, but for some reason her feet wouldn't work right. Her ankles felt like they were made of rubber, and they wouldn't hold her up. So the flailed her arms about and struggled for balance, and started to think about the performers back on her homeworld of Chad, the ones that used to walk in the vines above the heavy pools of glasswater that bubbled every once in a while from the heat of the core of the planet. She'd seen an animal--some kind of reptile, maybe a watergater or a grino--fall into glasswater once. It gave her nightmares for a week.
There was glasswater all around her now. She couldn't fall...couldn't lose her balance for a second. And as she saw the melting tusks of a grino and the dissolving jagged teeth of the watergater floating under her, Callista screamed and reached for the big support beam that had fallen cockeyed from the ceiling, the only thing holding the rest of the structure up.
It slid.
Instantly, the pretty sparkly white of the "sugar" vanished underneath a giant boulder that smothered it under a mountain of dust. The dust infiltrated Callista's lungs and she started to hack and cough, a terrible deep and rumbling attack that made her gag and loose what little breakfast she had been able to consume that morning. Callista felt her head clear and realized that the sugar was moving out of her blood system, that the dust had buried it.
She looked at Mara, whose head was raised slightly, her eyes partly glazed over but gradually clearing as the stench of the vomit reached her. She shook her head and her face turned grey, green, then white. She rolled over onto her hands and knees and threw up her share,
Callista had never been so happy to smell the acidic stink of vomit in her whole life.
"We've gotta get out of here before that thing comes down!" Mara was shouting, her green eyes wide and gaping at the beam, which was rumbling--Callista could hear the noise, which had sounded so distant before and was now deafening.--and shaking and getting ready to---
Mara lunged for it, but she couldn't move fast enough. In fact, she wasn't moving fast at all, because not only was the main beam coming down, but more of the boulders from the ceiling. As if in slow motion, Callista watched as one of them started to slide down two older, rotted, smaller beams, which were cracking under the weight--right above Mara.
The worst that could happen--was about to get even worse.
Callista lunged forward and grabbed Mara by the shoulders, trying to move her out of the way without shoving her too hard. She got between Mara and the boulder and wound up getting it on the side, which sent her tumbling, and the force made her toss Mara forward with more momentum than she had intended. She heard Mara let out a loud, pain-filled grunt, but it was nothing compared to the noise of oblivion coming down on Callista's head.
Mara looked over her shoulder in time to see the boulder that Callista had saved her from. It landed right on Callista's abdomen with a terribly loud crunching noise and Mara saw Callista's eyes glaze over in unconsciousness. Mara reached out with the Force and lifted the boulder into the air by a few mere inches, the effort causing a wrenching pain through her gut.
*The baby....* But Callista would die under that boulder. She didn't have the strength, and she could feel her insides beginning to scream. Was she hemmoraging? Was it bad? She slumped forward, her hand extended with the effort. She had to do something or they would all three die here.
She had to do something...something....something!
And something happened.
There was a new strength in the Force. As if someone else was in the room with them. *Luke?* But he wasn't there--not visible, at least, and it wasn't his presence.
The baby stirred within her, the movement causing Mara a jolt of pain. But the stone lifted off Callista by a good foot, and moved to the side to slide away like a pebble.
Mara hadn't done that. Who....?
No time. The ceiling was going to kill them both. Mara reached for Callista and stopped herself mere seconds from moving her. From the way Callista was lying, Mara could tell things were broken, crushed, pulverized. That stone had to weigh at least a quarter of a ton, maybe more. She couldn't move her--but she didn't dare not.
Then there was that presence again, and Mara realized that it had never left. It was there with her, always there. She had sensed it for as long as she could remember being pregnant, had sensed it in the beginning, when she and Luke had made love one night eight and some odd months ago, right in the cockpit of the Jaded Sky, right after Mara had made Luke take some stupid dare. She loved goading him so much sometimes it became a turn-on.
She had felt it on and off, touching her mind like whisps of words, meanings but no thoughts, emotions but no connections. But now it was strong, as if it were tangible and independant, as if all that swirling mass of life and soul had a body of energy.
Her baby was using the Force, and she wasn't even born yet.
There was a shield over them both, her and Callista. Mara tried to help but the effort brought on too much pain. The little rocks pinged off like asteroids on a deflector shield. The bigger ones swerved away from them, rolling off to land a good few feet away. The big beam came down and half of the main chamber was filled with large debris, blocking the entrance--and the exit. The other half of the chamber lay open, although it wasn't sure for how long.
When it was over, the shield faded. Mara sat up and saw that blood was trickling down her leg. She would have paniced, but the life inside her was strong and thriving.
Then came the worst of it. The first labor pain. It wasn't so bad, really, except that there was nothing at all appealing about giving birth in this sithpit of a wrecked hideout. There was nothing wrong with the baby--of that she was certain. Unless, of course, something happened to Mara. And something was happening to Mara. The smell of the blood, the way Callista's broken body stretched out under her--all of it was wrong. This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen.
She was in very big trouble.
Luke felt something. Mara was in pain. They had followed him in and gotten caught in the second cave-in. But it wasn't right. Something wasn't clear. She was muddled, through the Force. He tried to reach out to her, to help her, but he couldn't focus, couldn't concentrate.
He bit back the urge to panic. For an instant, he felt like he was watching Ben Kenobi die all over again, that sudden and complete shock of loss, that pain so terrible he didn't think he could live from it. Then he had reacted, firing at anything that moved. And then came the memory of when the dark side had threatened him, during his and Mara's trek through the Hand of Thrawn, when she had gone under the shelter of the ysalamari. He had thought her dead, and had wanted to destroy everything in his path to get revenge.
Just as quickly, he put all of that aside. The only way to help Mara--and their daughter--was to get out of this cave. The first cave in had clearly left him no front exit, and he knew he wasn't strong enough in the Force at the moment to lift those rocks out of his path, even to get to Mara. Maybe if there was a back exit he could get around to the front and call for help.
The block in his hand seemed to be heavier than it was a few moments ago. He stared down at it, lost in its eerie glow, feeling his eyes getting dry and heavy. Then it hit him--it was the stasis block. Somehow, it was distorting the Force. Maybe if he set it down...no, that didn't help. Maybe if he got some distance between him and it---so he started down the tunnel, feeling himself get clearer as more feet of earth separated them. When he felt clear enough to think straight, he turned around.
He hadn't felt this sluggish since Nam Chorios. It was worse, even, like trying to run while up to your waist in water. At least on Nam Chorios he had been able to concentrate.....
It made sense, though. Something that put life in stasis as this block was supposed to do had to interfere with the Force. The Force came from all living things, but whatever was in that block was suspended from life. It didn't age, it didn't breathe, eat, sleep, any of those things. While alive, its life had been put on hold, and with it, the Force that came from that life.
Luke approached the block again, steeling himself for the sluggish affect. The block had a small deactivation pad on the top of it, but Luke couldn't see it well enough to work it. He ignited his lightsaber over it, but the mixing of the green and blue light was just too much on his eyes. He couldn't very well leave the block here...but taking it with him would slow him down.
And in the moment of conflict, Luke sat down, nearly hypnotized, lost in the Force-distorting blue glow.
Mara didn't know she had blacked out until she heard a voice calling to her through the Force. Instantly, she wanted to believe it was Luke, but it wasn't. It was a woman, and she was strong--stronger than Mara had ever encountered in her life.
*Mara, come on! You have to get up!*
She blinked her eyes. What had happened? Oh, yeah, the cave had come in on Luke, then on them when like a couple of mindless Ewoks they had scrambled in after him. *Real smart, Jade,* she chastized herself.
*Don't make it worse by giving up.* Who was that? Mara raised her head and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Her temple hurt from where she had hit a rock when she passed out. She could feel the bruise starting to form.
"That's it." Same voice--now vocal, but weak. Filled with a gritty pain, like someone dying.....
"Callista!" Mara cried, jerking up and instantly regretting it. She was on her hands and knees, her stomach cast to one side in that motherly preservation instinct. There was blood running down her legs, but the baby was fine. But the baby would only stay fine for so long if Mara didn't get to a medical facility soon.
Then her eyes focused on the body in front of her. Callista was awake and staring at her, a trickle of blood coming out of the corner of her mouth, her body in a position that wasn't supposed to occur naturally.
Mara dragged herself closer. The voice she had heard before----*Yes, that was me,* Callista sent at her, an ironic smile on her face.
Mara froze. *How long?* she asked.
*About five minutes now. I felt it right after the rock...well, hit me.* Callista's ironic smile widened, and Mara could detect an edge of sheer joy. *It was worth it.*
*Well, if that was all it took, why didn't you tell me sooner?* Mara joked as she managed to pull herself over to Callista's side. *I would have been more than content to throw a rock at you.*
Callista would have laughed, but the sound was of strangled pain. Carefully, Mara cradled her head in her lap. "Easy," she whispered. "Don't try to move."
*No, talk to me through the Force. It's been so long.* The grey eyes were hazy. *You're much stronger than I would have thought.*
*Oh, really?* Mara cocked an eyebrow.
Callista managed a grin. *That was a compliment.*
*And here I thought you were human.* Mara gently combed back the tendrils of malt brown hair that threatened to cover Callista's face. Then she shut her eyes and tried to reach out for Luke, but felt like she was reaching through a six inch thick piece of transparent rubber to do it. He knew she was hurt, but couldn't do anything about it. He was stuck, too.
There was something even more odd about Luke. It was almost as if he were hypnotized.
Callista grunted. *Can't get him, can you? Me neither. It's like he's half here. Even with me dying and you going into labor...you'd think his insane overprotectiveness would kick in during situations like this.*
*Don't talk like that,* Mara admonished.
*Why not? It's the truth. It has to be. It's the only reason the Force came back to me.*
*No it isn't.* Mara's green eyes were serious. *Have you ever tried to think about why you lost your Force powers?*
*More times than I can think of. Actually, I'd rather discuss something else on my deathbed, if you don't mind.*
Callista's face rippled with pain, but Mara remained steady.
*When I became a Jedi Knight, I had to make a sacrifice. Luke had to make a sacrifice. And you, during your life, had to make a sacrifice. You know that.*
*I was selfish to take Cray's body. I know.* The grey eyes showed the first sign of tears. *I paid the price.*
Mara frowned. This was the last way she'd planned it, but she would never get the chance. *If you could change it back, would you?*
*Absolutely.*
For a moment, there was just a sensation of shock.
*You know,* Mara began, *when I first realized you were going to be returning to Luke's life, I was sure that you would hate me.*
*I did.*
Okay, honesty for honesty.
*But you just said you would change it.*
*Mara,* Callista broke off for a second, the final death pains setting in. Mara could feel them, a grinding, weakening pain, like a dog crushing a bone between his jaws. One jolt was so hard it made Callista jerk, and Mara had to change her position to partly hold Callista down to keep her from making the pain any worse. *I love Luke. I will always love Luke. And if I had had one wish, I would have wanted both him and my Force powers. But I had to face the truth--without my Force powers, Luke--life!--had no meaning. Luke wasn't first for me, and it wasn't fair to him, so I had to let him go. I didn't want to, but I had to. And that was the first step. I had to admit that ugly selfishness in myself, and it was my first real lesson in humility. Humility, Mara,* Callista added, her eyes stone serious, *is the first step on any journey of self- discovery. But when I realized I was pregnant, I always hoped that when I got my Force powers back, Luke and I could try again, but I suspected that you and he would eventually.....* Callista sucked in her breath. It was close now. Mara could feel it.
*Easy,* she sent soothingly. She felt so sorry for this woman, having to die in the arms of the one person she had to resent the most.
*I don't resent you,* Callista told her. *Not now, anyway. It seems pointless. I spent these years divided between chasing my son and chasing the Force. I wish I had been wiser.* She grew very quiet, as if considering her next words. *Mara, there are so many things I wanted to tell you and Luke. I've traveled so far in the galaxy, and found so many things. I've even made some discoveries that could change the way the galaxy looks at the Force...but there's no time for them. Except one.* And then her eyes shone a brilliant silver-grey, as if she were seeing something beyond Mara, beyond the cave, even beyond the Force. *You've had visions of your daughter, Mara. Your Vaiya, your stonelifter. It's a word from the ancient language of Chad, what my father used to call me when I was little. I lifted stones early, but your child surpasses even me. Your daughter will realize the things I have only begun to learn on this mortal plane, and revel in discoveries during her life that I will only know in death.* They weren't so much words now, but a rush of feelings and emotions, tied up in thought but untangling themselves into words in Mara's mind.
"Tell me," she whispered into the stillness of the cave.
*The Force...is not unto itself. It is part of something, part of Someone. I have only had a taste of this knowledge, Mara, but it is as infinite as the Universe, as all Universes, and even beyond them. The Force...is only the beginning...not the end.*
She was going now, but it was strange...as if she were a glass of water being spilled out into the ground and let to flow where it would. The eyes were fading.
"Find...my son," Callista managed.
"I will," Mara promised.
Callista nodded, and the look on her face would forever be burned into Mara's mind. "Even this..." Callista whispered, "is not the end...." And then Callista died.