Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (2 page)

“Uh huh! A rose by any other name...”

“I’m not going to win this one am I?” Ian asked.

“Nope! You’re busted.”

“Would you at least tell me how you found out about it?” Ian asked.

“Hah! Now, I know you didn’t just ask me how I found out. Hello? Clairvoyant; remember?” Jenny replied, teasing.

“Well, how about we pick this up later, I need to get going.”

“It’s your turn to cook tonight, Lover,” Jenny replied.

“Like hell it is! I cooked last night! It’s Cindy’s turn,” Ian said as he left his ready room and headed to the maglev.

“No, she has a hard time doing that in the hover chair. I swear, if she doesn’t pop soon, Beth’s gonna recommend a C-Section!”

Ian left the bridge and made the short walk to the maglev. Sitting down in the maglev, Ian said, “Atrium level, near Stellar Cartography.” As the car took off, he continued talking to Jenny via the comm. “Okay, I’ll help. But I think you’re right, I always thought twin births where usually slightly premature.”

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask Beth about that. I’ll let you get back to work. Have fun, and don’t spoil your namesake too much.”

Smiling, Ian let the channel close as the car announced its arrival. Ian got out and felt his body automatically relax as he entered the huge park that was the Atrium. The whole level wasn’t a park, just most of it. There were offices and labs here too. In addition to StelCart, Main Environmental was here, as well as Julie Laskar’s office. Janet Laskar had a ‘work area’ here too, although it was more like a secluded and sound proofed meadow than an office.

Looking up into the simulated afternoon sky, Ian sighed and headed down the path to StelCart.

––––––––

“H
ello Commander! Welcome to Star Country! What can we do for you?” Anna asked cheerfully. Nearby Serge squealed and tried to clap his hands.

“I’ve come to discuss your request, if you have the time?” Ian asked.

“Certainly! I should feed Little Bear anyway,” She said smiling. She picked up the little one and led Ian over to a lounge area. Ian recognized it as a semi-private viewing area since the table in the middle was a full function holo-table.

“It’s really good that you could come down here, so I can show you what we want to do more easily.” She grabbed a small controller off the table, before opening her shirt to nurse the baby.

Once Serge had his favorite food in his mouth, Anna punched a code into the controller and a picture of a star system appeared over the table. Ian realized that it must be the Centauri system when he saw the two stars. He was surprised at the definition that the display had.

“This is the Alpha Centauri A/B solar system. With the help of Star Dancer’s telescopes and sensors, we have made a few observations that NASA would never believe. First off, as you can see, there
are
planets. NASA seems to be correct about no gas giants, however, they were way off base about atmosphere and liquid water, at least we think they are.

“Two of the planets, and a few of the moons, show visual evidence of a life supporting atmosphere. We would like to launch the probe to investigate our theories.”

Ian nodded in agreement with her. “I have no problem approving an exploratory mission to the Centauri System. However, I do need to ask; have you considered how long it will take the probe to get there?”

“I don’t think I understand the question, Commander,” She said, and moved the child to her other breast.

“Well, the probe you requested is a sub-light probe. Which is to say, it can’t travel through hyperspace. Alpha Centauri is four and a half light years away. It’ll take almost a decade for the probe to get to its ultimate destination at its top speed.”

Anna looked thoughtful for a moment, but shrugged, “At least we will know. If it takes ten years or a hundred I feel the information is important enough for us to wait.”

Ian got a playful, thoughtful look on his face. “I don’t agree. You see, we seem to be a rather amorous group of people. Our overall population has already grown considerably if you consider the number of pregnancies.”

Anna looked crestfallen when he said he didn’t agree, but got a confused look on her face as he said the rest. She would have asked about it, but he wasn’t finished speaking.

“I think the information you seek will be of vital importance to us in our immediate future. So much so, that I think I should request a special shuttle be built so we can get the probes where we need them much faster.”

Although she had followed what he’d said, she was having a hard time speaking and was spluttering, trying to get a question out. Since this request was important to everyone in the section, they had also gathered a few eavesdroppers. They had questions of their own, which was good, since it gave time for their boss to untangle her tongue.

“Can you tell us what you have in mind, Sir?” a young looking boy said.

Ian nodded. “I’d be happy to, but please keep in mind, I’m not the explorer; you folks are, so you’ll have the final say on what you want the probes to do.

“What I had in mind was to have a special shuttle built to carry multiple exploration and survey probes. It could jump to the Centauri system and drop the probes. The shuttle could make the jump in a week or less, and you could have hard data as early as a week after that.”

Off-handedly one of the older women replied. “It takes the probes at least a month to do minimum survey of a planet. Atlas will probably take much longer considering its size. However, the other planet and the moons shouldn’t take as long. Besides, we can always monitor the probes from here.” She started getting excited about the prospect, and Ian could see that the rest of the section was getting revved up too.

In a way, Ian envied these folks. This area of research was one he knew he could sink his teeth into, but like his granddad had been fond of saying, ‘someone had to drive the train’.

Finally getting the knot out of her tongue, Anna asked, “So, what happens now? How do we proceed?”

“Simple, I’ll ask for the shuttle to be built, but will have the designer give you a call before sending it to the fabricators. I’d give a lot of thought to what I’d like included in the probes and computer system of the shuttle. Just remember, once you approve the design, that’s it. As soon as you say so, the fabricators will lay the keel for it.”

Anna nodded her head. “We will not forget, Sir. Thank you for answering our prayers!”

“Don’t thank me, Anna; I’ve a very good reason for wanting you to get that system surveyed. I plan on eventually founding a colony there, as well as building a ship yard with dry docks,” Ian explained. “So, please let me know when you have the data, as we’ll need to figure out where to put what.”

Ian had no more than returned to his office and finished ordering the shuttle when his communit beeped urgently.

“Captain, Sir, would you please come to Main Medical right away? Your wife has gone into labor,” a woman’s voice said in his ear. “There are complications, she needs an emergency C-Section now!”

F
.S.S.
Star Dancer.

Selene Orbit, (Earth’s moon)

Earth, Sol Sector.

When Ian arrived in Medical, he was directed through a set of doors and into the portion of the bay that actually looked like a hospital. One of the staff nurses saw the panicked look on his face and took pity on him. Boldly grabbing his hand, she very quickly led him through what seemed like a maze to a waiting area where he found Beth and Talena.

He'd expected to find Jenny as well, but she waddled in shortly after he arrived.

As Jenny was entering, Ian cornered Beth. “How is she?”

“Emilio just took her in. She and Talena were in Flight Ops when her waters broke. Alpha Bay ESAR got her up here fast. When Emilio checked her she hadn't even started to dilate. The computer reported that Cindy wouldn't dilate fast enough considering the stage of labor she was in. It recommended immediate surgery to remove the fetuses before they went into distress,” Beth explained.

“Is surgery really necessary?” Ian asked, worried. He knew that surgery was rare in Talosian medicine, and only reserved for very serious cases.

“Yes it is. Look at it this way; what happens to a watermelon if you push it through a keyhole?” Beth answered. Ian paled even more.

“Relax Ian. Even in Talosian medicine, this is a common procedure. It's been refined and perfected about as far as it can be. Unless or until someone discovers a way to safely use a transporter, there is no other way to do this.”

“Yeah, I guess I just hear the word surgery and panic. Did you get to see her before they took her in? How was she doing?” Ian asked.

“She was fine – a little scared, but otherwise, just fine,” Beth replied. “I think in her shoes, I’d be a little scared too. No one wants to hear the words emergency C-section when they’re pregnant.”

“Jenny, are they going to be alright? Do you know what we’re going to name them?” Ian asked.

“Ian, calm down!” Jenny said, seeing how worried he was. “If I had seen anything about this, don’t you think I would have told everyone by now? Before you ask, Janet hasn’t seen anything either. As for what we’re going to name them, of course I know, you know too since we all talked about it and chose names for them,” she said in as soothing a voice as she could use.

Beth took his hand and pulled him over to the chairs set up in the waiting room. “Are you going to calm down, or do I need to give you something? I swear! Nerves of steel when it comes to the ship and danger, but you fall to pieces when we go into labor?”

“If the ship’s in danger, I can usually do something about it!” Ian replied, but grinned slightly and started to calm down. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to finish finding his center. “Okay, so how long will she be recovering from this?”

Beth shrugged. “It’s hard to say, it depends on too many factors that I don’t know. It could be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month.”

“Oh, she’s not going to be happy about that!” Jenny replied. “She’s going to be chomping at the bit to get out and about long before that.”

Beth nodded. “I know. But this time she’ll listen and rest when we tell her to, otherwise, I’ll tell Star not to let her out of our quarters!”

Jenny and Ian both chuckled at that.

Talena said, “I don’t think it would work, she’d charm Star into letting her out!”

“She most certainly would not!” Star said from the door. She’d formed her hologram near the door so as not to surprise the people in the room. It was a habit she was getting into since Ian had remade her avatar. “Although I do have to admit, she can be pretty persuasive.”

Ian snorted. “Tell me about it, how do you think she got pregnant in the first place?”

“Come on, Ian, you have to admit, she didn’t have to try all that hard to talk you into it. Of course, I can’t say anything, because I wasn’t exactly playing hard to get either,” Beth replied.

“None of us were,” Jenny said.

“Well, I just hope everything’s fine, and I can see the babies before I have to go on patrol later today,” Talena said, sounding a little depressed.

“You’re still in charge of the patrol rotations, assign someone else to it,” Ian suggested.

“I don’t think that would be fair to the squadron. I’ve been skipping patrols already in order to help Cindy out here. The wing never said a word, but I know it‘s got to be bothering a few of them,” Talena explained.

“Beth, how long does this normally take?” Ian asked.

“Never more than an hour unless there are complications. Emilio was just taking her into the O.R. when you got here, so about another forty-five minutes or so,” Beth replied. “Why?”

As a reply, she got a smile from Ian, as he reached up to activate his comm. “Major Harris, please.” After a second or two, Ian spoke again. “John? Could you please have Gold squadron assemble in their ready room? It’s not an emergency, but it is important.” When the other man replied, Ian grinned. “Excellent! Talena and I’ll be right there, please include Major Brighton as well as yourself.”

Ian nodded as the communications ended, then took Talena’s hand. “Come on Cutie, let’s go talk to your wing.” He turned to the other two women. “We’ll be right back.”

Beth nodded acceptance, but Jenny tilted her head and grinned at them. “You’re going to go down there and throw your weight around aren’t you?”

“Nope, just gonna have a little chat to find out if what Talena’s worried about is an actual problem. See ya in a few minutes.” With that, he and Talena left the medbay for the flight deck.

––––––––

I
an thought he and Talena would have to wait for the wing to finish assembling after they got to the ready room, but was surprised when he found everyone already there and waiting, even Chloe Brighton, the Operations Chief.

“Commander on deck!” was yelled when Ian walked into the room, bringing everyone to attention.

“As you were!” Ian replied automatically. “Thanks for coming together, everyone. My wife, Cindy has gone into labor and is currently undergoing an emergency C-section in med bay.

“Talena told me she has been fudging a bit on the patrol roster so she has less patrol duty in order to stay close to Cindy and help her out. What I would like to know is, how many of you were aware of this, and do you mind?”

Before he had finished speaking, he could see a lot of the folks nodding their heads, but no one looked mad. One of the older pilots stood in the rear of the room.

“Sir, we’re all aware of what’s been going on, and no, none of us minded at all. However, we would like to know if everything’s alright with Lieutenant Williams?” he said and sat back down.

“So far everything’s fine. She needs the C-section because she isn’t dilating fast enough to accommodate the passage of the babies through the birth canal. So, in a little under and hour, I’m going to be a daddy.

“Since she has been taking advantage of you to help take care of Cindy, I was wondering if anyone would mind her doing it just a little bit more so she can be there for the birth and for when Cindy comes out of the anesthetic?” Ian asked.