ARC10

Chapter 29

Distant beeps rouse me from hazy sleep. My heavy appendages drag me farther into darkness. When I lift them, hands from the shadows restrain me.

"No, Honey, don't move. It's okay."

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Kiddo. It's me."

I blink toward him. "How long was I out?"

"A few hours. It's close to sixteen-hundred."

"Sixteen-hundred hours?"

He shushes me and smooths the hair around my head. "Relax, Nika." His attention diverts to a new presence. "Medic K, she's awake now."

"I have eyes, man. I can see that." The soft dialect infused with stinging words stirs my curiosity. There are a few people left who make words sound as if they are strung together by silk.

Through cracked eyelids, I see a gray room with dirty curtains. Two faces peer over. One is Simon, the other is a Medic I don't remember. Thick, gray hair tops his round head. He has slicked it back over his rich, dark skin. A floppy white coat not part of the khaki Medic uniform drapes his wiry body. His circular, silver-framed glasses slide down to the tip of his short nose as he bends over the bed.

"Nika, Medic K says you're going to be fine."

The Medic's gray mustache wiggles before he straightens to plod something on his PAHLM.

"Oh, good," I mumble before turning over on my side. With a crashing pain, I realize I cannot.

"You'll probably want to avoid resting on your right side—" Medic K points out without moving his attention away from his PALHM, "as that is where you were recently stabbed."

"Sure. Thanks for the advice."

"Can I get you anything, Honey? Anything to eat? Drink?" Simon frets.

"Yeah, Dad. Can you go back home and bring me a new shirt? I think the last one is done for." I finger the bandages wrapped around my naked torso.

"Yeah, I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." He plants a heavy kiss on the top of my head before he flies from the room.

"Level with me . . . " I lift my dizzy head as high as I can without passing out. "How long before I can be combat effective? I don't have much time to sit around and wait for skin to grow back."

Medic K exhales before answering with what seems to be his last string of his patience. "While your recent foray into knife-combat extracurriculars may have been the most imminent of dangers, I believe there is another, more pressing matter to discuss with you in regard to your health." He peers over the rim of his glasses.

"I know, I know. I haven't been eating or sleeping as much as I should. I've checked my stats. They're jacked. I promise to do more self-care as soon as we take off in . . . " I scrutinize my PAHLM for dramatic effect, "nine days."

"It's not your heath I'm primarily concerned about."

"Um . . . then whose—"

"It's your fetus'."

"What?"

"It's your fetus'."

"I heard what you said. What are you talking about?"

"As I was doing a bit of prodding about your ribs here." He points at the bandages. "I did some compressions on your abdomen to check for internal bleeding and, much to my great surprise, I knocked into something undocumented."

"That's impossible." He's obviously misunderstanding something. I'm barren.

"Ah yes, you must be right because you're the medical expert."

"But the HHP—"

"The HHP—" He bristles as he moves about the room to rifle around a cabinet in the corner. "Is an idiotic asylum run by a flock of apes in lab coats acting as if they are the gods of genetics. I saw they marked you sterile, something which I'm sure has eaten away at their systematic wet dreams. They worship results. They hardly remember the human body does not always follow their precise calculations. What rubbish they perform in their laboratory in the name of 'reproductive health' has little to do with humanity."

"I don't understand."

Medic K takes position at the front of my elevated clinic cot. I stare at him over my toes sticking out from under the blanket.

"Commander Janika Lorn," he enunciates, clearing his throat. "You are a twenty-seven year-old female whose found herself pregnant despite three worthless attempts at fertilization by a company of cretinous con artists in crimson clown costumes."

My jaw drops. With matter-of-fact precision, he continues.

"Your fetus is approximately twelve weeks along, and you are at the precipice of your second trimester. You're expected to give birth, if all goes according to plan, in approximately two hundred Earth days."

I absently stare into my lap at a snag in the blanket.

"Since the remainder of our race will be blissfully floating around in the middle of an unknown quadrant in our galaxy without a concrete sense of time, no one will most likely be able to pin down an exact date when the birth from your most reverent conception will actually occur. We'll have to play it by ear."

It's not true. It can't be.

He leers at me. "You, Commander, have much catching up to do on your prenatal health."

"This isn't happening to me."

"Ah, yes. Denial is an highly effective tool for this situation."

I stutter, attempting to vanquish the absurdity. "But . . . shouldn't I have been sick all this time? Morning sickness—never had it. How can I be pregnant if I never puked? How come I didn't know? Shouldn't there have been signs? Symptoms?"

"To use the most hated cliché in the English lexicon—the body works in mysterious ways. You needed to persevere, so you did. From what I've read of your statistics for the past few months, adrenaline is the main contributor to your ability to function. As for the morning sickness, many women endure pregnancies without ever experiencing the typical nausea."

The minutes stretch on as I grapple with the information.

Pregnant.

I'm pregnant.

A flutter of emotion stirs inside me until my heart beats like thunder in my ears.

I'm pregnant.

We did it. 

On our own time, we did it.

Without the hand of the HHP, we did it.

I wonder if he'll suppress his smile in the same way I'm suppressing mine.

A warm glow materializes from somewhere deep inside.

We did it.

I close my eyes to sift through my favorite memories. The heat of Dean's body entwined with mine whirls around my mind. Which time was it? Which one of our stolen moments did the trick?

The numbers fly through my mind as I backtrack.

Nearly twelve weeks. Eighty days ago.

Day 90.

Kai.