22
- Charlotte -
She circled the planet once before she put down. No place on this planet was safe at any time, but at the exact opposite side of where the Fire was raging was probably as close as she could get to peace and quiet here. Even so, she saw movement in the vegetation and small, black shapes in the air.
That was fine. This was dangerous. That was the whole point. This would be the first time anything like this had ever happened.
Many had died on the Fire Planet.
But nobody had been born there.
Charlotte's daughter would be the first.
The midwife robot was ready back in the otherwise empty cargo compartment, where the squad of warriors would usually sit. It was a large thing that contained everything to handle a safe delivery, including a comfortable table and a cocktail of nanopharmaceuticals to make it a not too unpleasant experience for the mother or the baby.
Before she'd left she'd given the robot one drop of her blood, and the robot's highly advanced computer did the rest, tailoring everything to fit perfectly to her body chemistry. It should be an easy delivery. Any risk would come from the planet itself.
She waddled back to the cargo compartment and sat down heavily in the delivery chair. The nanogel it contained immediately shaped itself after her body, giving perfect support, so it felt like she was floating in thin air. It was about time.
“There you are, honey,” the midwife robot said. “I'll just give you a quick check.”
The robot got busy around her in a very unobtrusive way, hardly touching her when it checked on her and the baby's vital signs.
The contractions had started right when she entered this solar system, and she had toyed with the idea of giving birth in orbit instead. But she'd discarded it. The whole point was that her daughter would be born on the Fire Planet itself. She would have gone through her Trials at birth, and the Acerex would understand the significance. They'd never ask the girl to go through any Trials again, even if she wanted to become a warrior.
In their own way, Charlotte and the Acerex warriors understood each other better than she'd ever understood other Earthlings. And this she was sure of. A girl born on the Fire Planet would be accepted as one of their own, half-alien or not. She would be accepted as a warrior, too, if that was what she wanted.
The midwife robot finished its examination and gently placed a sticky little band-aid on her hand, containing nanosensors.
“Everything looks great, sweetie. Still a little while to wait,” the robot said, sounding just like a supportive and completely confident middle-aged woman. That was the intention, too - its personality and voice had been modelled on an actual and very much loved midwife in Louisiana.
“You can get up and walk around a little if you want. I'll keep an eye on you with that sensor. Don't take it off, now.”
Charlotte got back up. She was still wearing her flight suit, but that would have to come off later.
She looked out the view ports onto what was probably the most dangerous planet in the universe.
Earthlings wouldn't get it. They would never be able to understand why Charlotte would take the risk of giving birth here, when she had the entire medical section on mankind's largest and most advanced spaceship at her disposal.
Well, they were right. It was risky. That was the point. The Acerex would respect and understand in their quiet way. And accept.
Even Cori'ax would understand this. Perhaps he would realize that he was wrong about her, that she was more than an easy lay for him, that she was every bit as much a warrior as he was.
She felt a hard sting in her heart at the thought of him, and familiar tears came to her eyes again. She missed him more than she'd ever missed anyone. She would have loved to have him here right now. Just the two of them.
If things had been different. Very different.
How could she have been so wrong? Had he really been faking the whole thing? If so, she had totally misjudged him. She had thought he was the one. She really had. Whether she was his Mahan or not, he had been the one for her.
And he probably still was.
She cupped her huge bump. Well, she wasn't doing this for him. She was doing it for her, for the baby.
She looked out the window. This was still a forbidden planet for Earthlings, mostly for their own safety. But this act would show everyone that Charlotte belonged as much to Acerex as to Earth. And that her daughter did, too.
It was the middle of the day and Acerex's sun was beating down on the impossibly green landscape. New plants were growing out of the ashes that was all that remained of the Fire's passing about two hundred days before, but they still hadn't started producing the extremely flammable chemicals that made them burn so bright when the blaze came again on its eternal circling of the planet.
She was alone, but nobody would doubt that the birth had taken place here. The dropship's automatic logbook, secured by military-grade encryption and impossible to fake or trick, would show every detail of where it had been. The midwife robot had a similar recording system that was usually used to optimize the way it worked.
She had cameras, too. She took one of them and pointed it out the window. The reflections made it hard to see out, so she opened the hatch.
Immediately the smell of the planet hit her and she almost fell backwards at the force of it. Burning, ashes, chemicals, smoke. Sweet-smelling flowers and foul-smelling bushes that would soon bear fruit dripping with flammable liquids. The Fire approaching. Danger. Death.
Her skin crept when her thoughts went back to the last time she'd been here. With Lily and Ava first, then joined by Harper and Vrax'ton. Crashed and stranded. She had thought she would die back then. She had been sure. And she had almost been right.
The shapes in the sky were coming closer, probably attracted by the newcomer. The craft would stand out for the many predators and creatures that lived here. Not many of them could cause serious damage to it.
A harsh shriek reached her from some terrible creature not too far away. She felt her resolve weaken. Shit. Was it a huge mistake coming here?
Well, she was here now. She lifted the camera again and took a step out onto the surface. The dropship's engines had burned away some of the tall grass, and she saw no animals close by. She panned the camera around.
“Bosh,” she said in the Acerex language, keeping her voice steady and detached. “The Fire Planet. Date fifteen fifteen ninety-nine two.”
She knew any warrior who had survived his Trials would feel a cold shiver down his back when he saw this footage. The burned ground, the strong smells and the strangely colored sky created an eerie, ominous atmosphere that she'd found on no other planet. The Fire Planet radiated danger and menace, even on the opposite side of where the Fire was raging.
A large insect the size of a seagull came buzzing out of the undergrowth, heading straight for her. She almost panicked and ducked, but then the insect seemed to hit some invisible barrier in the air and buzzed away again, much less steadily.
Charlotte straightened. Ah. The forcefield that Lily had designed for her dropship was still working, even when landed on a planet. It would keep smaller threats away, while the larger creatures here could get through it without even noticing that the forcefield was there. But any little help she could get was fine.
The eerie silence was rent by another shrill scream, closer now, and she quickly stepped back inside the shuttle and closed the hatch. “That's enough daredevil stuff from us,” she mumbled to herself and the baby. “This whole thing is insane enough already.”
She checked the craft's systems, just making sure that it could take off at a moment's notice if necessary. The contractions were closer together now, and it was about time to get ready.
The midwife robot had the same idea. “Why don't you come here and have a seat, sweetie?” it calmly suggested. “Might as well get rid of that suit of yours, too. Hey, I'm good, but even I can't extract a baby through seven layers of that fancy fabric.”