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“I’m glad to hear it.” Dr. Pertin reclined in his seat. “Because I’m afraid I don’t have anything more to give you aside from… well,” he smiled. “The talking. We’re in a bit of a bind here with medical supplies.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine, and the tea’s helping like always.”
“It isn’t your job to make me feel better, Alina.” Dr. Pertin smiled.
“I’m not. Look, I gotta go.” It was almost time for her dinner triage run for Kaia, and then Threxin’s next wound redress. “Don’t worry about me, all right?”
It was the first time Alina ended a session on her own before their time was up, and she saw that it threw him, but what else were they supposed to do here? Without the NS, a calibration doctor may as well be a surgeon without a scalpel!
Dr. Pertin nodded, but stopped her when she stood to go. “Alina? How was this appointment arranged?”
Alina swallowed, keeping her hands decidedly limp at her sides against the urge to fidget. “I don’t know… I think Kaia may have pulled some strings?”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Pertin nodded.
Aside from the impromptu medbay visit, Renza had permitted Alina to leave her watch at her cabin for her regular duties to avoid rousing suspicion. There was always a risk that Kaia would pull her away, but her charge—the human one—seemed even less inclined to need her than usual, if that were possible. Kaia was more distracted and looked more tired than usual. She hadn’t asked Alina to join her in the command center since the morning after Threxin’s “disappearance.”
Authority seemed to naturally fall to Renza amongst the uhyre, and luckilyColossalwas largely self-operating when no critical decisions had to be made. Threxin had already authorized a preset course for the location of a jump Alina wasn’t even sure would happen anymore. She was pretty sure now that Threxin would live, but how long would it take for him to wake up and be recovered enough to commandColossalagain?
So all in all, things were running as well as could be expected when your ship’s been invaded by aliens. Alina just wished she weren’t so tired.
“I thought we were on nutrigel, or the wraps or whatever now,” Kaia wrinkled her nose at the salad Alina held out to her the next evening outside the command center.
“I pulled a couple strings at the canteen,” Alina’s smile faded at the disappointment on Kaia’s face. Sure, she’d preferred nutrigel to real food when she first arrived onColossal, but Alina had seen her tastes evolve over time. She was regressing.
“Just get the nutriwrap next time,” Kaia muttered as Orion took the salad on her behalf.
“Kaia…” Orion sighed.
“What?Nutrigel settles my stomach.”
Alina blinked. Settle her stomach? Always tired and gaunt-looking? Cravings for otherwise subpar food? Realization hit her all at once.
She’s pregnant!
How could Alina not have seen it before? Kaia Halena was pregnant. She had to be. Even Kaia’s petulance and suicidal aggression toward Threxin and his kind suddenly made sense. It was the pregnancy hormones, of course. She was on edge and couldn’t help herself.
Alina’s stomach sank. What would Threxin do when he woke up and found out the former commander ofColossalwas about to get an heir? Would he consider the child a threat? Would hedosomething?
If ever there was a time to tell Kaia and Orion what was going on, it was then. Letthemmake a decision of what to do with Threxin—there was still time, after all. He was surely the weakest he’d ever be as he lay unconscious in her bed.
But Alina already knew what they’d do. There would be only one thing for themtodo, and that would be to kill the invader. And what if it made her do it, considering she wasthe one with the access? Alina’s stomach turned at the thought. And even if it happened—if Threxin was dead—the rest of the uhyre would still be there to enact their revenge.
Alina’s face fell when she got back to her cabin that night to find the covers thrown off of Threxin’s chest. She kneeled next to the bed and pressed a palm to his huge forearm, testing the body temperature: cold. She pulled the covers as high as his ribs, leaving the area of the wound bare. Then she peeled away the synthskin plaster. The wound was pink at the edges, but the plaster wasn’t crusted with blood on the inside anymore.
Alina recoiled when the alien groaned. His heavy brow was knotted, face tilted in her direction with his upper lip curled, revealing the flash of a black fang. It would take him nothing to reach out and snap her neck, maybe even in his sleep. How much awareness did the alien have of what was happening? Did he know she was there to help him, or would he wake up confused, in a rage?
Maybe he could hear her…
“So,” Alina whispered, clearing her throat. “Threxin.”
She yawned as she picked through the medkit at the bedside and extracted an antiseptic salve applicator. Pinching her tongue between her teeth, Alina dipped forward to position the tip of the applicator to the sutures in the alien’s chest.
“You’re in a cabin. My cabin. Me being Alina.” She applied the salve to the wound. “You were hurt by a person. But not by me,” she hastened to add. “And you’re okay. Your brother from another mother helped with a blood transfusion, and I’m watching over you.”
She smoothed the salve with her fingertip gingerly, gaze sliding up to the alien’s face for any reaction. Did she imagine the little twitch between his brows?
“You must be hurting, but that’s just the wound. Not me. So… please don’t kill me, okay?” She continued, extracting a new tube of synthskin from the kit and puncturing the seal. “I’m just redressing it now. You know, the stab wound.”
