HMS Valediction

Chapter 9.2

It's as if someone replaced my spine with a lead pipe after beating me within an inch of my life with it. I massage the splitting pain in my temples, but no matter how hard I press, the pain won't dissolve. It lurks behind my eyes and mocks me from within.

My mouth itches. I try to scratch it around the blue tube stuck to my upper lip. The protruding tab was wedged between my teeth, making it impossible for my jaw to close. When I try to rip the device from my face, I only succeed in increasing the agony.

After a few more minutes of exhausting effort, I slump to the floor, defeated.

My suit and helmet are gone. The stone floor chills the back of my naked thighs. All I have between me and the alien atmosphere is a thin, stiff shift made of what also feels like sheets of compact sand.

Screeching from the release of air from the complex hydraulics of the Xani startles me. From the shadows of the room, its eyeless face peers from within the shadows. Its slack mouth drools orange gobs that pile under its forehead.

I can't shove myself in the corner of the room fast enough.

I open my hand to request help on my PAHLM, but the device is gone. My arm is naked.

The room isn't cold, but the second I recognize how bare I am, my body shudders. My arms wrap around my knees as best they can around my bulging stomach. Something is not right inside. There's mismatched wiring, a burner that never ignited, an obstruction in the airflow. Something is wrong. "Hello?" I cry out again. "I need help."

My heart, or his heart, or something, is beating too fast.

"Calm down," I say to him. I repeat it over and over until it becomes a prayer.

The Xani shifts, kicking up a cloud of dust, obscuring it in a cloud.

I press myself farther against the wall, flinching at the soreness in my bones. It's how I imagine iron feels when being smacked into alignment with a hammer.

Rapid clicking footsteps approach – a beat I know so well.

"Pama!" I flip to my knees to stand, but it's impossible. My legs are too sore to work.

The brown wall in front of me breaks into dust. It cascades down until there is nothing between me and the next room. Two pink guards and Commander Hayomo appear. She is regal in her black and gray battle dress.

"What you have done tonight, Commander Lorn, disgraces the URE."

I expect as much.

"You sneak away from the ship alone. You wander, unaccompanied through one of the six largest intergalactic stations in the galaxy and managed to find an establishment lurid enough to commence your own bar brawl. You're no different from the impetuous child I scraped from the bottom of your family's vile junk-pile eatery. What you have done tonight is an embarrassment. And on top of it all—" stares at the swell of my middle.

She shakes her head and turns away from me as if this whole ordeal has personally offended her. Her chest rises and falls with the release of a tight, unhappy breath. I feel the immense pressure of her insurmountable disappointment.

She drops down to rest on her haunches. "How far along are you?"

"Twenty-two weeks."

I wrap my arms over my shoulders, attempting to shield myself. The way she scrutinizes me, almost as if she was appraising a cucumber at the bottom of a crate, makes my skin crawl. I feel like vomiting. I need help.

She stands to leave. "Are there any last requests?"

I waffle between how much I want to say and how much I'll regret not asking. Do I incriminate those whom I trusted? Something isn't right. "Can you send someone to check on the baby? I'm . . ." I don't want to acknowledge that something is wrong. But I have to. "I'm not feeling well. Can you send for a medic?"