Triad, Tharkad City, Tharkad
District of Donegal, Lyran Commonwealth
13 April 3030
The medical suite of the Triad had attended to many crises over the centuries that it had served the Lyran court. Relatively few were as pleasant as this one and Archon Katrina Steiner was lost in memories of her own time here when she gave birth to the young blonde now lying upon the bed.
Now she sat where her husband had been, holding Melissa's hand as another generation of House Steiner fought its way into the cruel world of the Inner Sphere. The father should have been here, but harsh reality prevented it – Hanse Davion was hundreds of light years away restoring order to his Federated Suns after the strains of the Fourth Succession War. With peace only two months old between the four signatories of the ComStar negotiated peace pact, the workload remained crippling. Even though Katrina's realm had not suffered the shattering impact of a ComStar Interdiction, a complete blackout of interstellar communication in retaliation for an alleged attack upon one of the techno-mystics' compounds, her own workload was crushing.
But at least she was not months away and could be there as Melissa gave one more tremendous gasp and then slackened her grip. Alarmed, the Archon tightened her own hand and half-stood to look at her daughter's face, but the still-teenaged (if only for a two more months) mother smiled her in relief and then both Steiner women looked to where the midwife cut cleanly through the birthing cord and handed the infant over to a physician while she turned her attention to the afterbirth. An instant later there was a healthy wail from infant lungs as the baby took it's first breath.
"Was it this long for you?" Melissa gasped between breaths as her own lungs laboured to replenish themselves after the last few moments.
The Archon smiled slightly. "Even longer, dear. Your father swears it only felt like a few moments to him, but I was in labour for most of a day."
Melissa rested her head on the pillows. "If Hanse was here, I think I'd hit him for putting me through this. Not that I wasn't as keen myself at the time."
They shared a laugh, for a brief moment less mother and daughter than sisters in that sorority common to those who have suffered through motherhood's rite of passage.
"Congratulations, Lady Melissa," the physician offered, as he approached with the child in his arms, now cleaned and wrapped in a light cloth. "You have a fine, healthy daughter." Katrina helped her daughter to sit up against the head of the bed before accepting the child, red-faced, bald of any hair as yet and with pale, newborn eyes that were almost identical to those in the Archon's first memories of her daughter.
"So, are you going to tell me what you and Hanse decided on for a name?" asked Katrina, reaching over to gently touch the infant's head.
Melissa smiled and someone in the background snapped a photograph that Katrina made a mental note to obtain a copy of. "We agreed on Victoria if it was a girl," the new mother said happily.