[--- FINAL CHAPTER ---]

Root CGD: 4291.81
CinT Ark Loc: Y2BCD.85.L (Kenopi – Outpost J)
We'd planned, before leaving Carillion V and Zenia behind in the city of Oenic, our next two delivery schedules. The idea being we'd be back for maintenance a CGD week before my actual due date and stay a week after delivering the baby before needing to get back to our demanding delivery schedule. Those plans were of course contingent on not having any issues crop up. During those two weeks we were in Oenic we were scheduled to upgrade our array of long-range sensors; they were several years out of date, along with doing general tasks to stay ahead of potential issues that I thought needed attention around the ship.

No section of the ship would be immune to getting a once-over. All the necessary parts had been ordered and would be waiting for us in Oenic when we returned. They were paid for, and all we needed to do now was make the ship available to the technicians, once back, so the work could begin. The prospect of some extended shore leave had helped quell the crew’s annoyance at having to do maintenance and deep cleaning around the ship.

Our going back to Carillion V was purely a 'baby' driven decision, and I'm sure that annoyed a few of the male crew members who weren’t interested in the grunt work maintenance involved once we got there next week. It bothered me I got that feeling from them when I’d announced my plan, especially since a few of them looked to Cheryl to confirm she was on board with my directive. I probably shouldn’t have let it bother me, but it did. Garrett was pretty sure two of the guys were probably not going to be with the ship after the baby arrived and would be looking for another ship to join during that time.

Fine by me… Get your own damn ship, and then you can make your own rules!

My hope had been I’d be delivering the baby in Oenic and Zen would be around to keep me from losing my mind during active labor. I'd have Garrett with me too, of course, but since leaving Zen after our visit, he was being overly attentive and a little too protective of anything and everything I did.

I wasn’t sure why, but I think his fawning over me was annoying Cheryl, and it took a lot of crazy to get her spun up. On the bridge one evening she'd put him in his place after I'd said I was going to go get something to eat, and he tried to step in to handle that for me.

“Stay; I’ll go get you something,” Garrett had said.

"The captain is pregnant, not crippled...," she’d snapped.

“I can do it; it’s not a problem, and I need to move anyway; I’ve been sitting too long,” I’d said to try and diffuse the situation.

I asked him later when we were alone to dial back his level of protections when we weren’t alone. I had been worried he'd take that request badly, but he took it in stride and even apologized.

"Whatever you need, Cam...," he’d said. "I just want these last weeks before the baby arrives to be stress-free for you, that’s all."

A benefit of going back to Carillion V, in my mind, meant there would be access to a hospital facility that by all accounts had been good to Zenia. That alone would boost my confidence about being in labor and having competent medical assistance available should I need it. I didn't want to get stuck having a baby in some outer rim outpost clinic with dirt floors and a metallic material roof like I’d seen a few times on the remote planets I’d visited.

I was not confident I knew exactly what was coming in regard to delivering our baby or if I could get through it with just Garrett supporting me. The baby kicked like a Lengorian pack animal, and of late I’d been dealing with increased acid in my stomach—which meant I tried to keep my belly full of bland food items. I was also suffering with getting enough sleep because the baby seemed to be overly active, especially when I wanted to shut down and just relax.

My back hurt no matter what I was doing, and my breasts felt full, tender, and leaked on occasion. I was ready for that part of the pregnancy adventure to be OVER!

Zenia had told me that regardless of where I had the baby, there were enough pain management options available, and I'd barely even know I was delivering my baby when it came down to doing it.

Unfortunately when the contractions started getting closer together and my water broke, the pain felt very much like how this journey to womanhood began in the first place—minus the muscle-tearing feelings I had back during that abduction event a couple of years ago.

So much for making it back to Carillion V and the city of Oenic!

What’s going on down there?

"You're going to feel like you want to push, a fullness that will make you want to push, but I need you to resist that," the nurse between my knees was coaching.

She sounded stressed to me. How’d she know I couldn’t control the urges to push? This is not where I expected to be delivering our baby!!

"You got this, Cam," Garrett whispered.

"Why am I so tired?" I asked, thinking I wanted to shift in the bed to get more comfortable, but I didn’t have the energy to move.

“Drugs, good drugs,” Cheryl giggled.

"Not much longer," the nurse said, engrossed with managing what felt like a cylinder of hover lift-arm lubricant trying to escape my body down there.

Or was it being pushed in? Dang it, I really don’t know, do I? In or out?

"What are you doing? I can feel that, and it kind of hurts," I complained.

"You're doing great," was the nurses reply.

I looked at Garrett. "What's happening?"

"She got the baby’s head," he replied, and my heart soared thinking I’d finally get to meet our baby and this would finally be over, but he added, "The umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck."

That last bit of information was delivered next to my ear and made my heart sink, and I was heading towards outright panic until Cheryl said, "There's nothing to be worried about... Just resist pushing, okay, like the nurse said, Cam... I just peeked; I see a lot of hair."

Cheryl was smiling, and I saw Garrett moving to take a look beyond my knees, and he too was smiling when he saw whatever was going on.

Had I been in a real hospital, I’d have been able to watch what was going on down there on a screen above the bed. Above me currently was a poorly painted metallic roof that had seen better days. Was that a bloodstain or splatter up there?

Where was the damn doctor?! He should have been here by now from whatever outpost he was visiting in whatever remote portion of this planet he was in or doing or ?? A nurse is delivering my baby?!

When we arrived the nurse who greeted us looked panicked that I was in active labor. She had told us the doctor was away setting a broken leg for a miner. I’m sure my face went pale after hearing that, but she was quick to assure me she’d delivered many a baby and I had nothing to worry about.

Nothing to worry about? Lady, you have know idea!

I’m positive, as I could be given I was in a great deal of pain, that Garrett had said something to her. I was likely bent over riding out a contraction, squeezing Cheryl’s hand while he was doing that, so I didn’t hear their conversation or complain that there wasn’t a doctor available or I wanted to be in a real medical facility!

We'd been in this infirmary facility on Kenopi for twenty-eight hours to get to this point – the baby’s head out of me. Before that we made orbit around the planet for our machine parts delivery, and six hours later the contractions started becoming more consistently spaced. Shortly thereafter my water broke. Both Garrett and Cheryl had insisted we convey to this infirmary rather than risk a two CGD day transit back to Oenic, me potentially having to deliver the baby on the ship en route and without medical assistance.

I wasn’t about to have a baby on the ship, so I agreed!

What happened to a woman's first child being typically LATE?! Zenia had told me that, and that's not what happened—I was six days earlier than scheduled! And what happened to having options for pain relief?! I was feeling way more of this than I was prepared for!

What is that burning smell??! Wait, that’s not a burning smell!

"That hurts," I complained again, adding, "Did I just..."

"Yes, it's okay... Zenia said that might happen," Garrett said softly, reassuringly.

I’d just evacuated a small amount of shit while trying not to push. I couldn’t help it, and I felt bad, but I couldn’t not push either, no matter how hard I tried not too! What did the nurse expect? The baby is coming, I can’t stop that!

I wish I could see the hair! Why is this taking so…

"Cam, when I tell you, I want you to push,” the nurse said.

“This is it…,” Garrett said, squeezing my hand.

“So close…,” Cheryl added.

I pushed when told—like I was trying to force my guts out through one or both of those openings down there. I felt a combined pulling motion that slid into almost an instant relief of pressure between my legs and abdomen. Everything below my waist hurt, my brain hurt, my…

I heard the sounds of suction; Garrett was in tears, and Cheryl was looking like she couldn’t hold back tears either. Had something bad just happened?! I saw the nurse holding a lump of flesh, dangling arms and legs covered in a smeared red liquid, a tiny head with a mass of hair, and she was guiding it all towards my chest, laying it there before she went back to her position between my legs.

Everyone was talking to me all at once and full of excitement, but I could only see my baby, that cumulated mass that had kicked and moved within me the past nine GCD months, was finally here, and somehow my arms were cradling it on my bare chest. As much as I had been in awe of Zen’s baby, Michael, my heart was melting at the sight of my baby girl—Allison was finally here.

Root CGD: 4291.93
CinT Ark Loc: Y2BCD.85.L (Kenopi – Outpost J)
According to the nurse, whose name was Camilla and also went by Cam, had to pay attention to which of ‘Cam’ people were speaking too while I was being coached through the birthing process. Camilla told us Ali weighed in at 3.1 kilograms and was 49.1 centimeters in length. She was just shy of the center of the charts for birth weight/length statistics kept by the Guild, and all her tests for hearing and eyesight were normal.

When it came to my baby, I couldn’t get enough of hearing the word ‘normal’ when Nurse Camilla was describing or relaying something about her to me.

I had been stressed that I would have problems with the transplanted reproductive system from Ali and my own body’s male origins would somehow screw up baby Ali. After she’d been placed on my chest, I didn’t want to give her up to a second nurse who was asked by Nurse Camilla to get her cleaned up better. Garrett assured me he wouldn’t leave our daughter's side.

Camilla ended up working between my legs to stitch, with some kind of laser instrument, the tear in my vagina that made birthing possible. I’d actually dozed a few times during the hour she’d spent working on me I was so tired and drugged still. By the time she was done, Garrett and baby Ali were back, and I got to hear her cry for the first time. In the moment, with all I’d gone through, I couldn’t help but sob along with her, though my tears were happy ones.

“Cam, you might want to try feeding Allison,” Camilla said softly while patting something against the raw nerves of my vagina that had me sucking in a quick few breaths while she did that.

Wait, feed her? Feed her… Yes, of course, I…

The second nurse in the infirmary reappeared in time to say, “Here, let me… No, let’s let her father hold her, so we can get your gown undone properly and make sure your nipples are clean…”

Within minutes the sound of Ali crying was all just a memory, and she was latched onto my left breast, suckling happily, as I tried to keep my soft breast tissue from blocking her nostrils as her little mouth worked for sustenance and she strained to breathe while eating.

“You sure you haven’t done this before?” Camilla whispered.

“She’s our first,” Garrett said quietly.

“Well, she’s taken to feeding. She might not be getting the good stuff from you right away, so don’t be surprised if some of this behavior is her trying to comfort herself,” Camilla said, before getting up from between my knees, studying Ali latched on, and then tucking the blanket she was wrapped in around her tiny feet.

Tears welled in my eyes when I looked down at her; the fullness of my heart was like nothing I’d ever experienced before in my life. I looked up at Garrett and smiled, and that made even more tears flow. How was I so lucky?

“You’re going to need to stay hydrated better if you’re going to cry so much,” he said softly, touching Ali’s cheek.

“I… I, ah… I love...,” I couldn’t finish before I was sobbing quietly again.

“We love you too, Cam… Just relax; the hard part is over… Well, at least until she gets older.”

“I never want her to get older…”

“Yeah, she is awful damn cute… Got a set of lungs on her, she let that other nurse know she wasn’t happy while she was cleaning her up.”

“She’s perfect,” I whispered.

“You both are…”

Root CGD: 4295.07
CinT Ark Loc: Y3CAL.76.R (City of Oenic)
Doctor Kurtz had finally decided to make an appearance, and after checking baby Ali, spent time between my legs correcting the work Nurse Camilla had performed stitching up my ‘perineal laceration,’ which was part of a procedure called an episiotomy. He had to explain what that was to me, and I felt woozy during that conversation, but he assured me it was normal and I’d heal without any long-term complications. I was told that once torn, it was something that would happen again if I were to have another child.

Once that was completed, with a mild amount of discomfort, I was told we could be released from the infirmaries care.

“So, we can convey to my ship? There are no restrictions for that with Ali?” I asked.

“Conveying any living being may seem a bit scary, but I can assure you its completely safe, even for infants,” was Kurtz’s reply. “There was research a CGD century ago that was focused on conveying a child from the womb. I’m not sure where they are with that these days, but I’d be leery of it if someone ever offered you such a procedure. Maybe in Allison’s lifetime it will become commonplace; until then, I’d stick with the old-fashioned delivery method you just went through. It’s worked since the beginning of time. Any questions for me before you leave?”

I was about to say ‘No,’ but his comment about having another child and another tearing of my ‘perineal’—whatever that was—came to mind.

“So, if I don’t want to have another child any time soon, is there something I could do?” I asked sheepishly.

“Not have sex, but short of that I can implant a birth control nodule to assist with that. You’ll be able to control it being active or not,” he replied.

“Could you… Please…?”

When that was complete, we didn’t waste time getting out of Kenopi’s orbit and en route to Carillion V and the city of Oenic. The ship had a schedule to keep, and we were a few days behind in getting our maintenance work going. We’d docked the ship at the repair facility, and I turned over management of the ship and work to Cheryl.

I had set up a sat-link call to Zenia to say baby Ali was on her way for a visit to Michael. That, of course, got me a few complaints because she couldn’t see Ali, and then her dropping the call so she could immediately make our connection a holographic one.

“You’re kidding me, right?! I want to see the baby, Cam!” She complained once I’d pulled up the hologram.

“I look terrible,” I complained.

“You look as beautiful as ever,” was the beginning of her reply, but she stopped speaking when she saw Ali. “Oh, Cam… She’s so beautiful...”

Once I’d gotten to Zen’s we chatted for an hour that first night nonstop, and all told we ended up spending most of our time with her and Michael while in the city of Oenic. Between two newborns’ demands for being fed, sleeping, pooping, and, of course, crying because of those needs, I got a firsthand crash course in being an attentive mother. Both babies slept a lot, a testament to them being healthy from gorging on breast milk and then being tired from having full bellies, which meant we had a lot of time to talk.

“I don’t try to tiptoe around Michael or try to be purposely quiet. I think it helps him to sleep better,” Zen had told me that first night we stayed over at her communal housing unit.

“Really? I’ve been so careful around Ali with noises and whatever. I’ll have to just do whatever I need to do and not worry about noises.”

“Well, within reason, Cam. You don’t want to be plasma welding something in the same room,” she giggled.

“Suppose not…”

“How’s Garrett been with her?”

“Oh, he is amazing… He loves nothing more than to sit and hold her… Chokes me up sometimes to see them together,” I said softly.

“I love that… You, ah… Given any thought about more children?”

“Yes… Before we left Kenopi, I’d had the doctor there implant a contraceptive nodule.”

“Not really what I was asking, but okay then – you’re still not sure about staying the way you are now? On the contraceptive front, I’m glad you’re in control of that,” she said, looking as if she had been reminded of something.

“What is it?”

“I’d had one of those before I was abducted. They’d removed it obviously since I’d gotten pregnant all those times… I wonder what would have happened to those…,” her voice faded, and she stopped speaking to rock Michael in her arms when he started to move a little.

“That’s the first time I’ve thought about Lyone since that second Guild run-in I had… I don’t want to think about Ali not being here in my arms had we not made it out of there.”

“Yeah…I’m really glad we made it out of there, though, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have gone crazy if we hadn’t escaped. Okay, enough of that,” she stated firmly before asking, “You still going to take her out into space with the ship? I asked the property authority representative if there were units available to rent and was told there were a few, one on this floor about ten doors down even,” Zenia barfed excitedly.

“I’d like that; I really would, but I really don’t want Ali to be away from Garrett, and business for the next year is looking very lucrative right now. I seriously doubt he’d want to be away from both of us either,” I replied, trying not to sound like I wasn’t aware a ‘ship’ wasn’t as good a place to raise a child as a unit in this build might be.

“You said Cheryl wanted to buy a ship, sell her yours, Garrett gets a job around here doing whatever satellite or communications work for one of the bigger companies, and you and I get a break from life and just be moms.”

“I’d like that; you know I’d like that… But what happens in two years when you go back to work?”

I knew from my last visit she’d been given two years off before needing to go back to work.

“I’ve looked into a nan-droid—a child-rearing android,” she giggled. “Have you seen them lately? You need a damn detector to know some of them aren’t actual humans.”

“Aren’t they required to have an indicator light as to them being powered ‘On’ somewhere on their faces, which clues people into knowing their android units?”

“Yes, but most people cover that up because they think it freaks their kids out or other people. There’s lots of distrust in droids and replicants, I suppose. I don’t get it,” Zenia replied.

“I can’t see turning Ali over to an android to raise her; that’s Garrett’s and my job,” I stated but felt bad about that because she was a single mother at the moment.

“They’re just a tool to help us out… I can see a benefit of something like that for you two if you’re living on the ship.”

Thankfully she didn’t seem to take offense at what I’d said, so I decided to play along a little longer.

“Are they expensive?”

“Not really, but they’ve got different protocols they’re programmed for. Like for babies or a toddler, all the way up to someone who’s senior and needing care.”

“We’ve got droids on the ship, but nothing resembling a humanoid or anything I’d want around Ali for a while…”

Root CGD: 4680.94
CinT Ark Loc: Y3CAX.54.A (Varino)
It had been a little over a year and a half since we’d been to Varino delivering those satellite dishes, and it was demanded we return to Chin-ray to ferry their technician back or there’d be penalties. Garrett had stepped in to assist them back then, but for this delivery we had their technician secured before leaving, along with their two thousand dishes. We’d be unloading the rest of the day and be on our way to Libat III for another Guild-contracted shipment of grain starts to a Barrier Zone planet outpost just getting started with their farming efforts near uninhabited space.

“Da da…,” Ali said to me in our stateroom before she waddled to the door, expecting that the door was going to open when she got there.

“Yes, he’s com…” I didn’t get to finish telling her he was on his way before the door slid open and Garrett was reaching down to pick her up.

“There’s my girl…,” he said with all the excited cheer and love a father would know his daughter wanted to hear from him.

“Da da…,” she squealed, hugging him tight.

It never got old seeing him with her or her love for him. She’d turned one year old a few weeks ago, and honestly, I felt like I was missing out on her growing up running this ship and being a full time parent + coupled to a man with his own set of needs. She was growing up so quickly. How could a year have passed already?!

She’d said ‘Da da’ before saying ‘Ma ma,’ and while it stung me a little, how could I not love seeing them together? Whether by accident or maybe he just knew, Garrett never rubbed that fact in my face. Toss that on the pile of reasons I loved him so much.

“How’s it looking in the hold?”

“About half of the dishes are unloaded, so maybe five more hours?”

He’d gotten good at estimating our loading and unloading efforts in regards to time. Cheryl had taught him well.

“Computer…”

“Yes, Captain,” the tinny voice replied from my desk area.

“Send a message to those not on the ship that we’re leaving in four hours…”

A moment later the voice said, “Message sent…”

“Four hours?” Garrett asked setting Ali down, but picked her back up when she started to complain.

“Yeah… If I said five, those away getting drunk would be here fifteen minutes late,” I said with a raised brow.

“Look, I… You know that wasn’t my fault. Cheryl told you she’d bought everyone another round while we were on Monal…”

I knew that, but I was letting him sweat a little after my call to bring those back from the planet’s surface had them showing up about thirty minutes after my requested time they be back. He’d whined a little in his reply, but he was smiling, so I knew he wasn’t that upset about his being in that group of late to return crewmen.

“Ma ma seep,” Ali said to Garrett after grabbing his face to say that to him.

“Okay?” he said looking over her, to me.

I shrugged, “Yeah, I was thinking about getting in a nap, for an hour, if you can keep an eye on her.”

“Ma ma seep, seep,” Ali said again waving at me.

Garrett walked over to me, kissed me lightly—which prompted Ali to want to do the same—before setting her down, taking her hand, and saying, “Alright, baby girl, let’s go see what Auntie Cheryl is doing…”

“Anny Serry…”

“Love you…,” he called over a shoulder as they walked out.

“Ove ou Ma ma…,” Ali called.

“Be good…” I said as the door closed.

SLEEP!

Root CGD: 5021.57
CinT Ark Loc: Y2CAL.36.W (Marris Wormhole)
Every trip we made through the Marris Wormhole had me on edge these days. If some alien craft conveyed me off this ship like they’d done previously, I’d deal with it, but if anything happened to Ali, I’d spend every waking moment I had left in my life making the Guild pay. They’d supposedly been involved the last time that happened to me, according to Keagan, and had done so using conveyor technology those beings on Lyone had developed, which allowed for me to be conveyed through the wormhole.

A seemingly impossible feat? Yeah, until it happens to you and you end up becoming a woman after all that!

Until this morning it had been business as usual, that is until a sat-link call came through our back channel account came in. We got calls that way all the time asking us to ‘move x-illegal cargo,’ but those were initiated by like back channel accounts—to keep everyone hidden and anonymous.

“Captain… I think we’re being called by Zenia on Carillion V, back channel,” Cheryl had called down to my stateroom.

“Really? She’s out in the open?” I asked to make sure I understood.

“Off-sector… I’m doing what I can to jam her origination point and keep curious parties from listening in.”

Okay, something was wrong. I’d called Zen last week to tell her we were heading her way in two weeks. My heart sank…

“I’ll take it down here,” I said to Cheryl, flipping a tablet setting to make it so I could pick up her call.

Several clicks later, which I knew was Cheryl’s jamming efforts being the reason for that, I heard Zenia asking, “Cam?”

“Everything alright?” I replied worriedly.

“I’m not sure… Michael is, well,” she began, but stopped speaking immediately.

I could hear the worry in those few words she spoke and then her crying softly.

“Hey… Zen, what’s going on? What can we do to help?” I said confidently, while running the numbers in my head for what it would take for us to get to Carillion V and the city of Oenic—four days; that depended on a few factors outside of my control, though.

When she didn’t answer, I said, “Slow breaths… Start from the beginning; we got you, you know that. Tell me what’s going on with Michael.”

“Tttthank you, Ccam,” she choked out, and I could tell she was trying her best to compose herself.

“We’re here for you both, always,” I encouraged.

“I... I know...,” she huffed. “I… I didn’t notice this at first or think much about it, but he’s talking so much more now, and I thought it was just gibberish or him parroting something back at me…”

“Oh, you should hear Ali! She talks so much Zen, like a little person, and she’s got plenty to say, believe me! Where did the past two years go?” I complained lightheartedly.

“Do you… I mean, does she say things that concern you?”

“No, not that I’ve noticed or given much thought about. What’s going on, Zen?” I asked, now concerned maybe I was missing something serious in the behavior of my own child.

“He told me I was going to call you, Cam, just now before I did it,” she said with as much concern as her last question had contained.

“Zen, we talk all the time, that’s not really that out of…” I stopped speaking because what I’d just thought gave me a chill and I had to pause to think about what she was really trying to tell me.

“Ali’s doing it too, to some extent, isn’t she?”

“We don’t want to talk like this, Zen. Do you understand?” I stated and noticed my hands were shaking.

“I… Yes, I do. I agree…”

“Good, we’re,” I thought about the numbers again, “Four CGD days from you, and maybe we should be there. Can you lay low for that long?”

“I’m back to work at the hospital. I’ve got Tuni watching him…”

“Tuni, is she shut down?”

“She’s in the other room; she might be recharging or doing laundry…”

Shit! Tuni was Zen’s humanoid in-home assistant android. Any appliance like Tuni was connected and monitored—it was entirely possible it was listening to one side of this conversation! Crap!

“Okay, this conversation is over—don’t say anything more. Go, pull the power cell on Tuni, and then figure out a real human to watch Michael until we get there if you need to work or can’t take time off…”

“You’re scaring me, Cam…”

“I’m afraid too Zen! If I’m hearing you correctly – our babies might be in danger. Be prepared to disappear when we get there; we might need to go to ground someplace people won’t be looking for us. Watch your back, Zen...”

As soon as she was disconnected, I headed to the bridge and told Cheryl we needed to get this run we were on done and headed to Carillion V. I didn’t get a bunch of questions or complaints, just a simple, “Yes, Captain…Dee, let’s move this girl moving a little faster. Bring the intermediate-level nuke turbines online, three-quarters power.”

I set my wrist communicator to masked mode and reached out to Garrett somewhere on the ship with Ali.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asked already in masked mode himself so those around him couldn’t hear this conversation.

“Can you meet me in our room? See if Tommy can watch Ali for a few minutes.

“This doesn’t sound good…”

“It’s not. Zen just reached out.”

“Really? Ali just said something about Zenia.”

“What? What did she say?”

“Something… We were playing, and I went, ‘Boo!’ to her, and she said, ‘No, Daddy, Auntie Zena is scary’d’. Something like that. I didn’t think anything of it, but…” He stopped speaking.

“In our room…”

“On my way,” he replied.

Root CGD: 5021.63
CinT Ark Loc: Y2CAL.36.W (Marris Wormhole)
I explained the call from Zen and what I thought was going on.

“Did she say that? Like, exactly what Michael was saying about future events?”

“Were you not listening? The call she made, he told her she’d be doing it…”

“Okay, so what are you saying?”

“I’m saying Ali and Michael might both be seeing… Seeing or having visions of future events, like we did while on Lyone, but maybe how Keagan thought might be possible.”

“How can that be, Cam? Neither of them is ingesting whatever that CP-1 chemical was,” Garrett countered.

“CPC-1, and would they have to be if the chemical modification occurred in us and their DNA is lined up in such a way it’s making that possible?” I countered.

“Wait, how… No, that can’t be.”

“Zenia and Ali had been given those chemicals and others for years, years! Are you saying it couldn’t have altered something within them, and then through conception, with men who were also getting all those chemicals, wouldn’t double down somehow and give our children that ability without the need of the chemical?”

“That seems like, well… Okay, maybe it’s possible, but Ali isn’t recanting stuff like that, is she?”

“You just told me Ali told you Zen was scared! How isn’t that the same as what I just got from Zen on the call about Michael?” I complained.

“I had just scared her, Cam,” he complained.

“I know… What about when we’re talking before one or the other of us leaves this room and she says, ‘Kiss kiss…’?”

“That’s not a vision, Cam. She knows kissing is an expression of love, and we do that all the time.”

“Alright, she told me you’d cut your hand last week helping Max in the power plant cooling tank retrofit. Not in so many words, but ‘Daddy oowly’ is pretty damn close to ‘Daddy cut himself’ and you did show up shortly after that with a cut.”

“I don’t think that’s it at all, Cam.”

“Fine… We’re heading to Libat III and dumping this load as quickly as possible before heading to Carillion V. Let’s see what kind of things our daughter has to say to us until we get there in the next four CGD days.”

Root CGD: 5023.55
CinT Ark Loc: Y2CAL.36.W (Barrier Zone – Sector 3)
“What’s Daddy doing, Ali?”

“I no know…”

“Where is Daddy?”

“Ships, Annie Serry gone…” Ali said while coloring on her tablet with fingers, not really paying much attention to me.

“He’s with Auntie Cheryl?”

“No… See, Momma, colors.”

“It’s beautiful, baby. Can you tell me where Daddy is?”

“Ships,” she said, looking back to her tablet, her feet swinging freely while sitting in the chair at my desk.

In my head I heard Garrett say, “I am on the ship, and I was with Cheryl like twenty minutes ago. That’s hardly a vision of the future.”

I thought, “Yeah, well maybe she just doesn’t know how to control it yet or verbalize what she’s seeing.”

Again in my head I hear, “Hmmuph, long shot Cam and I’m not…” He stopped speaking when Ali began speaking.

“Daddy, come see colors…”

“Ali, do you want Daddy to come see your colors?” I asked.

“That’s not the question to ask her, Cam,” I heard in my head.

“What a quesing is?” Ali asked focused on the tablet, then pulled at the display to give the drawing she was coloring dimension like a hologram might make it appear.

I thought, “Oh really? How and why would she ask that?”

“She knows we’re talking because she can see the wrist communicator… Total random idea of hers,” I heard him saying in my head.

I thought, “Whatever… Come get your daughter.”

“Daddy, get Ali, come?” She said, turning to smile at me and leaving the desk to stand by the door.

Root CGD: 5023.55
CinT Ark Loc: Y3CAL.77.S (City of Oenic)
“He told me I was going to ‘spill’ something, and I spent the next hour careful of my glass of water so I wouldn’t spill it,” Zen explained.

“What exactly did he say?” I asked sitting in her living room area on the couch across from where she was sitting.

“I think it was, ‘Mommy spills’. Not what I’d spill or when or how, nothing like that,” Zen shared.

“And did you eventually spill something?” Garrett asked, walking in after he’d checked on the kids.

“Yeah, the breakfast grains from the food replicator… I grabbed the container, turned to get the bowl behind me to put some in it, and I hadn’t noticed Michael was standing there. In my attempt to not knock him over, I tipped the container, and some of the grains spilled out. He just looked at me smiling as if saying he’d told me so. Nothing like that is happening with Ali?” she asked.

“It is to some extent,” I began saying, but Garrett interjected.

“I think it’s accidental, and we’re so focused on this right now it’s got us all paranoid and thinking it’s happening with Ali, but she’s just supposing or guessing or being silly while talking,” he concluded. “Plus, women didn’t have the vision stuff like the men did while we were confined, so I’d be careful with thinking she’s doing what Michael—a male—is doing.”

Both Zenia and I shook our heads; we knew we were women, mothers; and had a completely different connection with our children than a man would.

“Want to explain how I saw things?” I challenged.

“You said Keagan called you a ‘hybrid’ male. I’m sure there’s something to that,” he stopped talking because he didn’t want to emphasize the point that I’d been born male, but through being abducted and getting a women’s reproductive system installed, it kind of made me exactly that—a hybrid.

“What kinds of things did you first notice?” Zen asked me.

“Knowing something was going to happen with someone before it did. Like, we’d be in our room and she’d know Garrett was coming or someone else was going too appeared at our door,” I replied.

“Not every time, Cam,” Garrett complained.

“No, but not every word out of her mouth should be expected to be some prediction of a future event either,” I pointed out. “I believe she’s doing it without much focus on voicing those visions, but maybe Michael is.”

“He’s being a kid and sprinkling that stuff into his talking with me, sometimes others,” Zen said.

“That’s my biggest fear: someone other than us hearing what they’re saying and that gets back to the Guild. They’d come for them and us possibly,” I whispered, feeling suddenly nervous.

“I’m not going back to a cage, Cam,” Zenia said just barely above a whisper.

“Then let’s plan what we’re going to do about that,” Garrett said with more confidence than I’m sure either Zenia or I felt at the moment.

Root CGD: 5029.01
CinT Ark Loc: Y3CAL.77.S (City of Oenic)
Every planet had an underbelly and Carillion V was certainly no different. We needed that seedy element to complete a critical part of our plan to go ‘off-section’. Not just with the creation of new identities, but deep manipulation of our very DNA signatures recorded with the Guild. The changing of their records would make tracking who we were by any Guild agency or entity virtually impossible. All told – we were into masking our identities to the tune of 1.2 million credits for the five of us.

More credits would be bled from our accounts.

The next thing I needed was to be out from under the owning of my ship. Cheryl, even with several backers, couldn’t afford the market rate for the Barrow Gar, but she offered for perpetuity a payment of one-hundred thousand credits to an account connected to my new identity every month. I was taking a leap of faith agreeing to this transaction – but she’d proven time and time again to have my best interests at heart, not to mention she was the one to put up a bounty for tracking me down and had instigated saving us from Lyone.

The last thing we needed to do was contract with three other smugglers a complex route of interceptions of those ships in open space so we could be conveyed from one ship to another, until it had happened three times, and we’d finally be conveyed to the surface of a planet of our choosing.

With Zenia’s buy-in we’d chosen the planet…

“We good to go?”

“We are Captain,” Cheryl replied.

“Not my ship any longer, Captain, I’m just a guest on it you’re transporting for a fee,” I replied, choking up a little.

Cheryl stepped closer to get her arms around me and we both lost it on the bridge. A moment later Dee had her arms around the two of us and all three of us were crying like blithering idiots. It took a long time before any of us could speak and when we did the things we told one another brought on additional fits of sobbing. That dance of tear drops and heart wrenching good-bye’s went on for thirty minutes.

Thankfully Cheryl and Dee recovered enough to get this adventure underway.

“Dee… Let’s get us out of here and rendezvoused with the first ship, you have the coordinates?” Cheryl asked.

“I do Captain,” was her reply.

“Impulse thrusters until we’re clear of the docking station, then punch it…”

I could only marvel at the professionalism of these two women, knowing I’d helped shape them probably as much as they’d both made me a better woman, mother, and human being. I was going to miss all of this, but keeping my family and my extended family safe was now my focus.

Root CGD: 5033.01
CinT Ark Loc: Y3CAX.88.P (Outer rims of Caspia Aurora)
“Mama trow out… No back trow out, Mama” Ali said to me as I picked up something from my desk.

I looked at her frowning at me; she already knew what I was doing. I just gave her a smile and then looked at Tommy.

“I’ll be just a couple minutes… Something I need to do before I leave,” I said to him.

“Anything you need Captain… I, well… I wanted to say it’s been a pleasure serving under you Madame.”

‘Madame’? That made me feel every bit of the thirty two years I was.

“Thanks Tommy, watch over Cheryl for me with that same spirit…”

“I will…”

I turned to the door and was off to find Garrett. He’d just finished saying good-bye to Max in engineering and I caught him in the hallway on his way back to our room.

“Come with me…”

“One last romp in the stores pantry?” he asked all grins and eager stupid look on his face.

“As much as I could use that distraction, no,” I said trying to smile.

I led him to the purge chute, the ships facility for garbage disposal that would incinerate all our waste and blow the ashes out into space. At the panel I slapped the large open button, the door opened, and as was protocol there’d be a need to tell the bridge what was going on – but I’d already handled that with Cheryl.

I turned to Garrett and he looked worried, speaking quickly to ask me, “Ah, what are we doing here, Cam?”

“I love you more than anything in this entire expanse of space and beyond, you know that, right?”

He nodded and began to say something, but I held up a hand, “I’m yours, all of me is yours, and nothing will ever change that. This is the disk which contains my original DNA sample taken by Cheryl before my first female hormone injection.”

I tossed it into the room, punched the door close button, and looked at him smiling. He got it, knew what this last trip around the ship together was all about. Seeing his smile I pushed the incinerate button and the room glowed a bright red for a fraction of a second. When complete I pushed the secondary outer hull door button to release the charred remains of the tiny disk out into space.

“No going back now… I wouldn’t want to, not with all you’ve given me, and could give us in the future,” I whispered taking his hips and pulling him into a hug that became a passionate kiss.

When we broke our kiss he held me tightly and said, “I’m yours, all yours, now and forever.”

I couldn’t help but smile, it was his standard addition to anything endearing he said to me, ‘now and forever’.

“You excited?”

“I’m optimistic we’ve got a good chance to raise Ali and any other children we decide to have without the Guild finding us. That excites me, you excite me, and I couldn’t have accomplished any of this without you.”

“So, we’re going to have another child?”

“Let’s practice a bit first…”

FIN

[---<>--- ]

Authors Note:
So, this was supposed to be a ‘short’ chapter, but obviously I like words and haven’t met one I don’t like typing. Geesh! Anyway, this has been a fun romp and I can’t begin to tell you how much every Kudo and comment has meant to me. Thank you so much for giving this story a shot. I’m not a sci-fi expert, but I threw a cobbled idea together, some garnish here and there, and a little backdrop, to figure out if I could make a go of this kind of story.

I want to extend a special Thank You to an incredibly talent author (go read her works if you haven’t!) - Emma Ann Tate. She provided me with a major assist in this story that would have flipped it on its head had I not listened to her. She gave me a suggestion for how to continue the story back in Chapter 13 when I’d told her about being stuck and my couple ideas for how to move this story to an end point weren’t to my liking. I won’t share exactly what I’d planned, but let’s just say it wasn’t good for one of the main characters and Cam might have ended up with someone else. Thank you Emma! You da BOMB Chica!

Is this the end? That depends on you the reader. You can take this chapter and think – yup, they lived happily ever after or comment that you’d be down for catching up with this cast of crazy once settled on whatever planet they land on or even further down the road or whatever. Or don’t say anything and I’ll get the message loud and clear. Potential untapped topics to continue this story – Keagan, Guild depth of involvement or advancement to get a glimpse of the future, kids with visions, rebels, and more – like more of Cam and Garrett.

That’s it… Just a quick note to say THANK YOU! for giving this story a chance and following it to its conclusion (?).

Don't be afraid to click the "Kudos" (Thumbs Up) icon for this story if it's done anything for you. If you comment, I will reply.

Big HUGZ to all of ya’ll and we’ll see you ‘round the BC-verse. Thanks for the read...

Rachel M. Moore