Meanwhile, on Coruscant

[Lilaena De'Ville]

0 ABY

Zizzy Starseed was shoplifting again. Dana Stryder cast the teenager a sideways look, the blue skinned Twi'leki lurking by the candy aisle wearing a canvas jacket three sizes too big for her skinny frame. Their eyes met briefly, and the thirteen year old alien girl quickly averted her gaze and walked briskly out of the store.

Dana rubbed a hand gently over her bulging stomach, shuffling forward in line as the checker seemed to have fallen asleep while counting up change at the register. The shopping basket on her arm was beginning to drag her down toward the ground and she looked up with relief as it was lifted from her arm. "Oh, thahnk you Corrahn."

Her husband leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Anything for the mother of my child," he teased, sorting through the contents of the basket before adding in a pack of stims.

Dana frowned. "You sahd you were going to quit. The smoke..." She tapped her pregnant belly and added, "I know, you're going to smoke outside."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going to," Corran agreed, as they finally got to the checkstand. He started unloading the items onto the conveyer belt as the check-droid scanned and put them into bags. "And then I'm going to quit. I promise. Before our baby comes." He kissed her on the tip of her nose and gathered up the bags as she fumbled with a credit chit. The droid waited patiently for her to program the correct amount onto the chit, and then accepted it from her, pressing it into a slot on it's barrel-like body.

"Have a good day, gentle beings," it said haltingly, and then turned to the next customer.

Dana hurried out into the afternoon twilight of Coco district, the manufacturing zone where she and Corran both worked. He was waiting outside, a stim already between his lips. She felt like scolding him, but sighed instead and took one of the thin plastic bags from him. "C'mon, let's go home."

Corran grinned at her, that grin that made her weak in the knees and her heart skip a beat, and she found herself grinning back, despite the humidity of the day and her exhaustion. They were lucky to have each other, and luckier still to have jobs in Coco. Thankfully she looked human enough, but it was a matter of record that she was a quarter Balosarian. Having to live in Invisec, or, as the Empire liked to call it, the Alien Protection Zone, would be a nightmare. Here in Coco Town different species lived together in relative harmony, as long as everyone kept their heads down and no one rocked the boat.

The Stryders did not rock the boat. She hooked her arm through her husband's, and they walked to the turbolift that would take them down to their small apartment.

Dinner was a quiet affair, though she could hear the Starseed's yelling at each other in Twi'leki or whatever their language was called through the wall. They were the only Twi'lek's in the area that Dana knew of, and so they stood out like a sore thumb amongst the more human-like aliens of Coco Town. It was hard not to think of the Starseed's as former sex workers, but they probably were. Dana pulled the bread pockets out of the oven and set them on the stove to cool while she finished the meat filling and Corran flipped through the channels on the holonet.

He switched past the news, and then went back, sitting forward on the chair he called "comfortable" and she called "old and stinky."

"Ahre uou going to help me cut the lettuce?" she asked, only to be shushed. "Whaht? You wahnt me to be quiet?" she raised her voice to be funny as she walked around the penninsula to their tiny living room, knife still in hand.

"...Alderaan, a long supporter of the Rebel Alliance, was destroyed yesterday by the Empire's newest space station, the Death Star. Causualties are measured in the billions."

Dana blinked, the surge of emotion coming from her twenty-five year old husband causing her to start shaking. "Whaht... whaht does it mean 'destroyed'? Your fahmily, Corrahn."

He was shaking his head, flipping to another news channel only to find the same story running. Alderaan. Gone.

"They ahre cahlling tomorrow, just like every week. It cahn't be true." Dana looked down with mild surprise to find the knife still in her hand, and she shakily placed it on the counter behind her. "Corrahn -"

"Shut up!" His face was ashen and he was picking up his commlink. They couldn't afford the call, that was why they waited for his parents to call them every week. Dana bit the words back before she could say them, and sank to her knees beside his chair, using the overstuffed arm for support. "It's not connecting," he said. "It's not fucking connecting." Corran punched in the string of numbers again and waited. "Connect, dammit!" There were tears in his eyes.

Dana just stared blankly at the holoscreen, her blood rushing through her ears like a roaring waterfall. How could an entire planet just be gone? How could the Galactic Empire justify such a thing? She clutched at her Alderaanian husband's arm as a pain grew in her lower abdomen until it was all she could think about. After a moment it receded. He was still using the commlink, calling up his cousin Dorn Tillisk who lived a block or two away. He was trying to be calm, but to her Balosar sensitivity he might as well have been screaming, his throat ragged and hoarse. She was crying, and the pain came on her again and suddenly she was kneeling in a puddle of water, her legs drenched.

"The bahby," she said, pulling at his arm. "Corrahn! The bahby!"

He stared at her blankly, his face shell shocked, and then he looked down and registered what she'd been saying. "I have to go Dorn. Dana's in labor." He hung up and grasped her hands. "What do I do?"

Dana pulled him in for a hug, clutching him tightly as another contraction came over her.

He buried his head in her neck and she could feel the wetness of his tears. "What do I do?" He sounded so lost.