The contraction worsened, growing more painful until she moaned aloud. “It hurts!”
Alyssa was at her side. “You’re too tense. You need to breathe, Deanna.” She glanced over at Ree, who stood taut, ready to act, but keeping his distance. “Deanna, you need the doctor.”
Once the contraction subsided, she met his eyes, trying to control her breathing. “The baby is mine,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied.
“You know how I feel now.”
“…Yes.”
She held his gaze. “Do your job, Doctor. Prove yourself.”
His tension eased. “Yes. Thank you, Counselor.”
As he moved forward, a throat cleared. The Lumbuan nurses had come forward, the senior nurse at the head of the group. “We can assist,” she said. “Doctor.”
Ree studied them. “You would help a monster?”
The senior nurse fidgeted. “Monsters have babies too, it turns out. And we help babies.”
“Very well,” he said, not wasting time. “Prep for delivery and begin sterilizing the necessary equipment.”
The nurse paused. “Is there anything…different…I need to know about?”
“Nothing of substance. Your experience should serve.”
“Counselor!” Tuvok called from outside.
“Tuvok!” Deanna called back. “The baby’s coming! You can come in!”
“I appreciate the invitation, but I must decline. According to our signal intercepts, the local police have discovered the officer we incapacitated upon our entrance, and are preparing to storm the facility in response.”
“Tuvok, don’t let them get near her! Protect my baby!”
“That is what we all wish, Counselor. We shall protect her. You have my word.”
“Yes,” Ree said. “We will all protect her.”
“I know,” Deanna said. Right now, they all shared a single priority: the safe delivery of the child inside her.
But what would happen afterward?
CHAPTER F
IFTEEN
TITAN
Ra-Havreii was surprised when Melora came to see him in engineering. “Commander,” he said with wary civility.
“Commander,” she replied. “I, ah, need your help.” His brow rose, and she continued. “Cethente and Kesi have developed a particle field that can neutralize the disruptive charge in the asteroid dust. We’ve exposed samples of the dust to the field and achieved a total dissipation of the stored energy.”
“Excellent,” he said. “What’s the problem?”
“Deployment. Titan’s main deflector can project the field from orbit to deal with the dust in the stratosphere, but reaching the deep ocean is another matter.”
“Yes, I see,” he said, speaking over her last word. “The most practical way would be to replicate a series of deep-sea probes that can descend to the dynamo layer and permeate it with the field. The techniques we used on Cethente’s pod should serve to protect them from the pressure.”
Melora stared. “But that would take hundreds of thousands of probes. The dynamo layer has a volume of over thirty billion cubic kilometers, and the field can only penetrate so much water!”
“The probes can move through the dynamo layer, each one covering a fair swath over time.”
“But they might only last a few hours each at those pressures.”
“Yes, we’d need redundancy. But we could make do with maybe a thousand. The industrial replicators should be up to it. And we can always harvest the asteroid field for extra raw materials.”
“Deploying a thousand probes would take every available hand we could spare! It’d take days!”
“Have you got a pressing appointment somewhere else? I’m sure Commander Vale would be happy to leave this world to its doom so you don’t have to be inconvenienced.”
Her gaze hardened. “Oh, don’t start with me now, Xin. This isn’t the time.”
“ Iam being entirely professional. Unlike you, we Efrosians have the knack for objectivity toward our sexual liaisons.”
“Says the man who said he loved me!”
Everyone close enough to hear—meaning everyone in engineering, for she had said it rather loudly—turned to stare at them. Refusing to acknowledge their distraction, Ra-Havreii pulled the Elaysian into his office, her light build and antigrav suit making her almost weightless. She didn’t resist, though. Once they were in private, he pointed angrily and opened his mouth. “I—”
After a moment, she crossed her arms. “You?”
“Well, you said it too.”
“I did.”
“It was the heat of the moment. The distress. Look, we really should get back to these probes—”
“Xin, what are you so afraid of?”
There was no hostility in it. Her emotional armor fell before his eyes. This proud, defensive woman had left herself vulnerable to him by choice. In response, he felt his own guard falling away. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said.