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He stood with his back against the wall, his arms folded, glaring at the tiny pink-haired woman. "Can't you go any faster?" he snapped. His foot tapped on the floor, and he started to pace. His white suit was pristine save a small, dried spot of blood on the lapel - he rubbed it with his thumb.
"I'm going as fast as I can, Kishi - this is a delicate procedure. I've never done it before," the girl whispered. Her hands were hidden under a blue sheet, and the only noise was the clinking of small metal tools.
"I thought you said you'd done this twice, Mercy."
"No, I said I'd seen Ariel do it twice. I've never actually done this. There! Got it!" she exclaimed. Mercy's gloved hands surfaced above the blue sheet, and she reached over to flip a switch on a holovid. After a shaky and fuzzy startup, the image became clearer.
Kishi squinted his eyes and looked at the flickering image.
"I'm enlarging and enhancing the image," Mercy explained. A few moments later, a very complicated and intricate pattern of pink flesh came into view.
"What is that?"
Mercy snickered at her husband's lack of knowledge. "It's her womb."
One day earlier...
"Why do you have to go? You just got back this morning!" Annika cried, tears dripping off of her cheeks. She clutched Obi-Wan Kenobi's hand tighter.
"Because I just do, Annika. I can't explain it right now. This is a very dangerous time for all of us. The Empire is -"
"I don't care about the damned Empire! I'm sick of this! I'm sick of hiding, I'm sick of not being around my friends, I want to go back to the Room Behind the Waterfall!"
Obi-Wan sighed and frowned. He wished he could go back too. Go back to simpler times, when the only thing he had to worry about was whether or not Annika had attempted to cook. No one had anticipated the Empire; no one could've foreseen the terrible blight that was to fall on the Jedi, not even Yoda. The one Jedi who could've sensed it was now a Sith. Obi-Wan closed his eyes as thoughts of his Padawan floated into his brain. He cursed himself for not seeing the troubles in Anakin sooner.
"Obi-Wan?" Annika asked with a tear-laden voice.
"Yes?"
"Please, don't leave me. I'm so scared..." She buried her head in his shoulder and cried more.
"I know. But I have no choice. I'll be back. You've got the guards here on Bakura, you've got your handmaidens, and even Seiyaku is here. The rest of the senshi are not too far away. I know everything is chaotic, and I'm sorry."
"Why is Anakin doing this?"
Obi-Wan bit back tears and kissed Annika's forehead. He got up to leave, but Annika pulled him back down to the settee. He looked into her eyes and smiled.
"Stay with me, please. Don't go yet. Just stay for tonight. Please?"
Something tugged at Obi-Wan's heart, telling him to leave immediately, but he couldn't resist the look in Annika's eyes or the touch of her hand upon his. He knew that this would probably be the last time he would see her, so he kissed her and decided to stay until morning.
On the other side of the planet, Prince Kishi, Annika's brother, sat pensively in his room. His wife, Mercy, sat opposite him reading various science books. Suddenly she slammed the heaviest one shut and locked eyes with Kishi.
"Tell me again. Why are we doing this?"
"I've told you four times, these orders come directly from the Emperor himself. Who are we to question his supreme knowledge?"
Mercy rolled her eyes. "What if I get in there, and what we're looking for isn't there?"
"It will be."
"How do you know?!?"
Kishi slammed his fists onto the table and stood up. "The Emperor has foreseen this event! How dare you doubt him?"
"I'm sorry. I'm just not sure this is going to work," she said, picking up a miniscule device lying on the table. "And what is this for again?"
"It's a remote viewer and will provide a visual link to the holovid."
"I love you, Kishi, but you're insane."
The prince smiled coolly. "Why thank you, dear."
As the sun rose over a foggy Bakuran horizon, Annika stood in the hangar watching Obi-Wan Kenobi, the man she never had the chance to marry, climbing into a star fighter. He looked sorrowful and tired. Their whole lives had been turned upside down - from the rise of the Empire and Palpatine's treachery, to the murder of several Jedi and Senshi, and now to this... to hiding. Obi-Wan looked back at Annika one last time before strapping himself into the seat and starting the engines. Slowly, the fighter sped out of the hangar and Annika was left all alone. Again.
Walking out to stand in the rain that had suddenly begun to fall, Annika lowered her head and sobbed. The droplets of cold rain hid her tears and soaked her white dress. She didn't hear Mercy's tiny footsteps creep behind her, and she didn't see her brother give a signal to his wife, and she didn't feel the drugged dart as it sniped her neck. Annika crumpled to the ground. Kishi quickly scooped her up, and the small drop of blood produced by the dart melted onto Kishi's lapel.
"I don't see it," Mercy mumbled. She squinted her eyes behind her glasses and sighed.
"It's there! Keep looking," Kishi barked.
The image on the holovid showed the delicate silver medical tools poking around Annika's womb, searching for the tiniest miracle.
She sighed. "There is no way I'm going to be able to find a - Oh Sith! I don't believe it! I don't believe it!!" she gasped.
Kishi walked up to her and looked at the holovid. "What?"
"There it is. There's the fertilized egg. I do not believe it!"
"I told you. The Emperor was right, as always. Remove the egg immediately."
Mercy frowned. "Which one?"
Kishi stopped in his tracks. He spun around to face his pink-haired wife. "Excuse me?"
"Which egg? There are two."
"Damn her! I knew my sister would find a way to ruin my plans. Take them both!!"
"Both?" Mercy sighed but set about her task. As her tools edged closer to the first less-than-microscopic piece of tissue, thunder ripped across the sky. Kishi audibly gasped.
"She knows," he whispered. "Hurry! She knows!"
"How can she know, Kishi? She's under anesthetic!"
"Because she's a senshi! She's Sailor Bakura."
"What?" Mercy backed away and looked terrified; her hands shook, and a single bead of sweat ran down her back. "You didn't tell me that!"
"Mercy. Do it. Now!"
Mercy's minute frame hurried over to the table Annika was lying on and quickly went back to work. She carefully grasped one of the eggs and placed it inside a tube filled with a strange liquid. Annika furrowed her brow and moaned. "I can't do this, Kishi! She's waking up!!"
"You had better do it! You're almost done! Hurry!" The rain outside now fell in thick sheets, obscuring the view. Kishi eyed Mercy as she removed the second egg.
"There. It's done."
Kishi picked up the tubes, and his eyes glowed with an intense fire. "This is my key to the universe. This is my future."
"What are you going to do with them?" Mercy asked.
The Prince's eyes shifted from Mercy's eyes to her abdomen. "How would you like to be a mother?"
"Me? I can't carry twins!!"
"No, you can have one of them. I have a friend, a Ghostling - she owes the Sith a favour."
Mercy folded her arms. "What's so special about these kids, anyway?"
"You'll see... the entire galaxy will see."
Annika's head was pounding as she sat up in her bed. She looked to her left instinctively, expecting to see Obi-Wan, but saw only rumpled sheets. She rubbed her head and looked at the bright sky outside. Standing up, Annika felt a blow of sadness hit her, but it wasn't the Force. She felt as if she were missing something... something important, but she didn't know what. Tears slipped down her face.
