Disclaimer. I don't own Star Trek or its spin-offs. I write solely for the pleasure of it and (hopefully) yours as well. I welcome any and all reviews. Happy reading!
Prologue:
Things were bad. The shuttle was more than damaged—it was altogether broken. Nothing worked, save the last laughable vestiges of life-support and the intermittent impulse engines. Marie was moaning on the mat laid out in the back. Jhasil knew she was dying.
He'd given up checking on her. She had withdrawn completely, and the sight of the pooling red blood made Jhasil feel sick. Her eyes were vacant and her grip had gone slack. There wasn't even a damned emergency blanket to cover the horror with. For the last hour he'd been staring out the portside window, his eyes as vacant as Marie's.
xxx
She died in the night. Jhasil wept but knew his grief was tainted with disgust at himself for not at least holding her hand as she slipped away from him.
Guilt, too; Marie had begged for them to make a run for it weeks before. If he'd listened they might have made it—both of them. But how could he have known that the baby would come so early, or that those blasted Orions would have stripped everything from his scout ship? Jhasil cursed every poor choice, every miscalculation. Marie was dead. And it was his fault.
He was horrible! He couldn't look at her, hadn't said goodbye as she left him. What was he? What had he become? He kept his eyes firmly on the stars. They were as cold as he now felt, and Jhasil couldn't tell if they were condemning him or were completely impassive. In the end, it didn't matter, for it was all the same.
xxx
She couldn't stay on board. The smell-alien's blood and still so strange-was unbearable. With extraordinary effort, given his current lethargy, Jhasil pulled himself to his feet and went to the scout's rear. Her eyes were open. He swept his hand gently over them until they stayed closed. They would open again soon he knew, but he couldn't help that.
Her hair was matted with drying blood. Jhasil sighed, ignoring the growing reek, and combed his finger through it. Over and over until it was smooth enough. Why did he have to cry? Crying was always bad. He shouldn't cry.
He would have to blow her out the airlock. His disruptor he kept hidden under the main console had been stolen, so he couldn't disintegrate her. The weapons, including the self-destruct (damn, damn those Orions!) were gone. The options were sorely limited.
He left one last kiss on her forehead, then carried her to the airlock, keeping his eyes on her face, away from her nakedness, her dead-pale stained legs, from the swollen belly, from everything. And when he released Marie and their half-born child into space, Jhasil wondered whether it was courage or cowardice that kept himself from doing the same.
