24

- Charlotte -

“There are many ways to do this,” the midwife robot said in its soothing way. “There's the easy way, and then there's the even easier way. There's the full spectrum of harder ways, too, but not a lot of mommies-to-be pick that. They're all completely safe. It's all up to you, sweetie.”

Charlotte leaned back in the extremely comfortable delivery chair that supported every point of her so well. Her belly stood skywards and looked like it was about the size of a mountain. She was bare from the chest down, and the robot had placed a soft sheet over her. People would probably think that giving birth inside a military dropship was extremely weird. To Charlotte, it felt pretty natural. She had spent a lot of her life in surroundings like this.

“Uh-huh. You know, I kind of want to feel it. Not too much, though. Just a little short of actual pain. Is that possible? With me being fully awake and able to experience the good emotions?”

The robot chuckled softly, the most un-robotic thing Charlotte had ever heard any of them do. “Oh, I think you'll find all the emotions about giving birth are good. You'll have the full experience, honey. Except the pain, of course. Most women pick that same thing. Good choice.”

“And none of those hologram illusions, either,” Charlotte added. “I'm fine right here, I don't need to think I'm on some tropical beach or in a log cabin or whatever.”

“You know, I had a feeling you'd say that. Let me know if you change your mind. I have a whole bunch of real nice scenarios to pick from.”

The robot wasn't made to look human. It was just a machine, but Charlotte didn't mind that. It was painted in whimsical colors and had silly cartoons all over it, as well as girly glitter and sparkly rainbows and rhinestones and fake jewels and sharpied greetings from mothers it had assisted before.

It was probably all perfectly sterile and clean, but the thing was calming and soothing and it had a touch that was so soft and at the same time effective that she felt completely safe in its many hands.

It placed one of them at Charlotte's arm, and the slightest little pressure told her that something had been injected.

“You can talk to me as much as you want, sweetie. I know everything that's going on with you and the child, but it'll be nice to hear your take on it, too.” The robot stroked her hair with one soft hand that managed to seem more safe and reassuring than a human hand would.

“Will you be my mom?” Charlotte said spontaneously and jokingly. She'd never had an older woman make her feel so cared for as this robot did.

“And the first meds are kicking in,” the robot said with a satisfied tone and kept working swiftly and elegantly. “Don't you have a mom, sweetie?”

She looked out of the windows. It was getting darker. Sooner than she had expected, but this whole thing was probably distorting her sense of time anyway. “Not for twenty years.”

“Then I'll be happy to be your mom today. I don't know how serious you were, but you can call me 'mommy' all you want. Lots of the girls like to do that when they start to feel the meds. And I think that's very, very nice. That's the way it was in the old days, you know. I mean, the really old days, before midwives were a thing. Just the girl and her mama and maybe some other older female relatives.”

It was getting darker fast, and most of the light in the dropship came from the instruments. But the robot didn't need light to work, and Charlotte was just as happy to not see absolutely everything that happened.

The contractions were pretty close together, and she knew it wouldn't be long now. “Mm. Yeah, I don't know. Do you have another name I can use?”

“Well, let's see now. The woman I was modelled on is called Maisie. Maybe that could work?”

“It could. Maisie. Yeah, sure.”

The robot concentrated its attention on Charlotte's lower part. “Honey, if you don't mind me saying so: if you didn't have a mother before now, then you've done very well all by yourself.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said and felt some tears welling up behind her eyes. “It's been tough sometimes, but it's not like I had a choice.”

The robot passed a tissue across her face, and it felt just like a swift breeze. “Maybe it didn't feel like a choice, but I think you've made many choices in your life. And looking at your physical body and the baby's fine condition, I think you made all the right ones.”

Except getting pregnant by an alien warrior who only saw me as a fun pastime.

“Sometimes,” she said aloud. She looked up at the ceiling of the shuttle, feeling Maisie the robot work under the sheet that covered her.

“Now, can you feel this?” Maisie asked.

Charlotte felt a little pinch. “Yeah, just about.”

“Fine. If you want, that's the most you'll feel from down here. What do you think? Turn it up? Turn it down?”

“Feels fine to me.”

“All right. I'm happy to tell you that the water just broke. Things are right on schedule, sweetie.”

Charlotte quickly checked the cameras. None of them would capture any of her intimate parts, but they would catch the important things. The Acerex weren't too visual, and rarely liked screen entertainments, but it made sense to just get as much evidence as she could.

Something was definitely going on at her nether parts now, and Maisie was as good as her word – there was no pain, just sensations that told Charlotte something about what was going on.

“How you holding up, sweetie?”

“I'm fine, thanks.”

“Everything is fine down he-”

WHAM!

There was a huge bang and a flash of light that bathed the interior of the shuttle in a harsh, white light for a split second.

Charlotte was stunned for three heartbeats before she realized that all the lights had gone out of the instruments. It was suddenly very quiet. The almost inaudible hum from a living ship was only noticeable when it wasn't there anymore, and now it definitely wasn't.

The air felt charged, and when she touched the handhold of the delivery chair, a spark of static electricity gave her hand an unpleasant sting. The hairs on her arms were standing straight up, and she could feel her hair suddenly frizzy with static. There was a strange, chemical smell in the cabin, like burnt electronics.

“Maisie?”

There was no reply, and in the darkness Charlotte could just about see the many arms of the midwife robot hanging limply down.

The dropship could handle being hit by gunfire and flying right through explosions. It could fly in air and in gases and in liquids, as well as in space. Its armor was the best Earth technology could come up with after thousands of years of warfare, culminating in extremely advanced nanotechnology with some degree of artificial intelligence.

But now the whole craft was dead.

On the Fire Planet.

While she was giving birth.

She felt an irresistible pressure from her crotch, just on the right side of pain. She knew that only the chemicals Maisie had injected in her were keeping her out of a terrible, paralyzing panic.

There was another flash and a bang, a little further away. It was obviously lightning, but there was no rain. Another lightning bolt hit the ground nearby, and then another and another, rattling the sturdy dropship like tiny explosions. Then they came faster, and before she knew it, the lightning and the bangs were coming continuously in a horrific cacophony all around her. They created a strobe light effect inside the dead dropship, and Charlotte wanted most of all to bury her head in a pillow and scream. Just one of those bolts had killed the whole ship.

But she had no pillow, and she had something much more important to do.

She'd have to deliver the baby herself.

She took many deep breaths, trying to ignore the unholy racket and the deadly light show outside the craft. She had to be strong. For both of them.

“I guess it's just you and me now, kid,” she said, and her voice trembled. “But that's the way we like it, we warrior girls.”