Chapter 6-Unexpected Expectation

Several Days Later-

Cale awoke in his quarters. He made a move to embrace Akima to find that she wasn't there. This made him sit up and look around the room. He noticed that her clothes were missing, which meant that she was already awake and somewhere else. Cale shrugged and wiped the sleep from his eyes with the tips of his fingers. It was becoming normal for Akima to rise and leave Cale in the bed. He turned himself so that his legs draped over the side of the bed and his feet touched the ground. Reaching for his clothes was a large task in the morning, but he somehow got around to it and put on his reddish-brown shirt and his brown cargo pants.

Cale left his room and began to walk the Valkyrie. He walked by the captain's quarters to find Korso not there. The hallways seemed too quiet as he continued his patrol. When he reached the bridge, he found Akima sitting in the copilot's chair on the lower level. The large window was open revealing a mass of stars in the black void of space. She was busy minding her own business which was playing around with her swords. She held the handle in one hand with the tip of the blade on the floor and spun it with the other hand.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with sharp objects?" Cale said with a cynical attitude.

"No. Actually quite the opposite, she taught me how to use them." she replied.

"Well, anyway, I was wondering where you were." he said as he walked up behind her chair and put his hands in his pockets. She sat sideways in the chair with her left leg over the left chair arm.

"Right here. I didn't want to disturb you as you slept and besides, my back hurt a little." she told with the sword up vertically in the air. The gleam from the blade caught Cale's eye.

"Have you seen Korso?" he asked.

"He is on the station in another board meeting. He says they're gonna give us Gianni's last position, but if I know Korso, that's not enough for him." she said as she returned the blade to the floor. Cale took his hands from his pockets and placed them on her shoulders as he continued to stand behind her chair.

"Oh. Well, do you want to make breakfast, should I, or are we eating in the Kronos mess hall?" Cale asked as he stooped over to put his head over her shoulder.

"The mess hall sounds like a good idea, neither one of us has to cook." she answered. Akima stood up from her chair sheathed both swords and put the strap over her head, so they would be diagonally on her back. This way, she could easily reach them by simply reaching over her shoulder and grabbing one.

Cale and Akima finally found the mess hall after about fifteen minutes of searching. When they reached it they found a small lowly-lit room with black mesh floors. The tables were octagonal the seats came up from the floor just like Tau 14 except the seats had backs that folded up. There were several advertisements that scrolled on holographic screens about the entire hall. In the center of the room was a hemisphere that projected a large holograph image of a news cast. It was buffet style and human cooks were actually behind the counters. This pleased them to see that they made some of their own kind of food.

"Hey, some real food. It's been a while since I had some!" Cale said as he stood in the line and scooped a plateful of pancakes for both he and Akima with a spatula. He held a tray with two plates and two forks and knives. Along his way, he picked up some syrup and butter as well as some synthetically-made milk. Once he was finished on his raid he walked back to a table that Akima was sitting at. "Thanks, love." she said as he set the tray on the table right in front of her.

"I didn't know how much you wanted, so I got a plateful." he said as he handed Akima a plate and set the pancakes before her. He set his own plate right next to hers and sat down. Cale took his fork and gathered three pancakes and set them on his plate. The syrup slowly dripped from the small container as Cale poured some of the thick, sticky substance all about his meal. Akima forked six pancakes onto her plate all stacked one on the other. She then reached for the syrup and marinated the food with it. Cale was a little surprised and he almost laughed, but ended up holding it in. "You've been eating hearty meals, lately, dear." he said as he brought it to her attention.

"I'm hungry, Cale. Can't I just eat a little?" she said with pleading eyes.

"Sure, but it's just not normal for you, honey. I'm not even used to eating that much." he replied while shaking his fork at her. They both started eating and it was quiet for a while until Akima spoke up.

"What are these things supposed to be? I can make better pancakes than these guys." she complained and went right back to eating, "They taste like artificial food." she said with a full mouth.

"There's your answer. They're probably artificial, but at least they're not staring back at you like all those alien foods. Just think, Akima, you could have to spear it in order to eat it because it was hopping around the table." Akima laughed slightly at that statement, "I'm thankful that it's dead." he said as he finished.

"So, Cale, when do you think you'll be done with the repairs?" Akima asked as she scooped some pancakes into her mouth.

"Well, we could leave today, but it would still be too slow. I just gotta patch up a few things and we can take off." he said while he was picking around with his pancake.

"I want to get out of here as soon as possible. We haven't even started looking, yet." she said with, yet another mouthful of pancakes. They continued to eat there for another twenty minutes and talked about things like the food they had to get used to without an earth, some of the new weapons Stith bought, and somehow ended up on a discussion about the tattoo on Cale's arm. After their discussion, they returned their trays to the front and left the mess hall. Cale and Akima headed back to the Valkyrie and during their trip they discussed about what they were going to do that day.

"The plasma engines are almost finished. Shouldn't take long." Cale explained when they finally reached the Valkyrie. They passed by the bridge and their quarters. When they passed their quarters, Cale gave her a gesture of innuendo by smiling and nodding his head toward the door, but she politely turned him down and told him, "I'm not feeling well."

Cale pulled himself underneath the large, cylindrical generator and began working by welding a small hole in the side. Akima followed him into the engineering room, where he was working, and stood there in the doorway watching him handicraft this large contraption. That was one of the aspects she liked about Cale: he could fix or make just about anything. Just then, she felt this distasteful, warm feeling in her sternum. Small yellow sparks flew from the hot metal as Cale melted both sides of the hole. It formed an orange, thick fluid substance that covered the hole. Moments later, he lifted the black welder's mask from his face and rotated it back over his head to talk to Akima, but he noticed that she wasn't there. "Akima?" he said with a little confusion.

"Akima? Where are you?" he continued as he stood out from under the generator and walked out into the hallway. Looking to his left first and then his right, he didn't see her anywhere. Then, he heard a noise. He wasn't sure what it was, but he followed it down an adjacent hallway where he found a door that opened to a restroom. The sound stopped as he reached it. "Akima?"

She came staggering out and lost her balance, but leaned against the wall for support. She appeared as though she had some sort of illness. Cale raced to her and offered himself as support. She leaned on his shoulder and gave him a grateful smile and glance. "Are you okay?" he asked as he held her arm firmly so she wouldn't fall.

"I put my breakfast on display back there in the toilet." she said with a little moan. Cale smiled at this because he appreciated her sense of humor even in the worst of times.

"Perhaps you should lie down a little while." Cale suggested.

"No, I think I'd rather go down to medical and have Gune find out why I feel so sick." she replied. Cale shrugged and set off for engineering again. Akima took a different direction and found Gune in navigation where he normally was. She found him asleep in his chair tilted back.

"Hmm... very interesting," Gune said as he held her jaw and was peering down her throat with some sort of contraption that he looked through. Akima felt a small ounce of pain with Gune's roughness, and she gave a little, 'ouch,' here and there. "Partially singed esophagus membrane. Swollen larynx lymphatic nodes. Ahh... you threw up." he added as he let go of her jaw.

"Yeah, I knew that, but why am I ill?" she asked as she comforted her jaw by rubbing it with her left hand. She sat on the same table that she attended to Cale's wounds on before, where they actually first met, minus the window washer incident.

"Ahh... I scan internal organ structure for illness." Gune wheezed as he stood on a stool in order to reach a scanner on the top shelf to the right of the medical bed. He almost couldn't reach it until a last stretch gave him enough grip to take it off. Gune hopped down from the stool and lumbered over to the medical bed where Akima patiently sat. "You- need lay back for this." he added.

Akima laid on her back and squinted her eyes due to the immensely bright light that shone overhead. Gune stood on the right side of the bed and pressed a few buttons in order to turn the scanner on and to put it on a specific setting. He set it to sense and identify molecules so bacterial ones would stand out. Gune lifted Akima's shirt and folded it upward at the bottom end of her ribcage.

He set the scanner just below her sternum and moved it around, probing her upper digestive system. "Nothing in stomach," he announced as he continued to move it around.

"I threw up, remember?" she said with a sarcastic tone.

"I check inferior intestine." he replied. He moved the scanner down her stomach and along her abdominal line. When he slid it down to the normal position of the small intestine, he had problems finding it. Instead he found something totally different. Gune gasped and jumped away from the table and started dancing, "I find reason for illness!"

"Yeah? And?" she said, trying to facilitate the words from his mouth, as she sat up and let down her shirt.

"You going to be mother!" he said as he continued to dance about the room.

"What! I-, I- I'm pregnant!" she said with a shaky voice, "How didn't I know?"

"Fetus is approximately three and five-tenths in development. A few more weeks you should have noticed growth." Gune explained as he stopped dancing. Akima brushed a strand of purple hair out of her face that had found its way out when she was surprised. "Do you know the gender?" she asked, now calming down, "I would like to know."

"Ah... sex is female." he said as he pointed to the screen.

"Thanks, Gune." she said as she stood from her seat and walked out. Gune continued dancing around the room for a while longer. She walked down the hallway with another tender, motherly smile and either hand on her stomach. She was the a little nervous, though. She was thinking that it was too early for her; she'd turned twenty-one not long ago. It was also somewhat euphoric, also. She and Cale would get to raise one of their own. Wait! She'd forgotten about Cale! Akima stopped walking in the hallway to think a little. How was he going to respond to this? How was everybody else going to respond with the mission? She simply hoped they would take it lightly.

When Akima reached the engineering room, she didn't find Cale. The next place she searched were her quarters, but he wasn't there either. She finally found him in the captain's quarters with Korso. They were both sitting in the seats drinking a glowing, blue fluid. When she stood next to the door, she could hear them laughing hysterically at something.

"May I come in?" Akima asked as she poked her head in the door. They both calmed down and ,between giggles, motioned her to come in.

"Feeling better, baby?" Cale asked as he propped his hands on each knee.

"Yes," she answered, still searching for words that wouldn't let it out just yet, "feeling much better, thanks."

"Well that's good," Korso said before he finished his glass of the drink.

"Cale," Akima addressed. He raised his eyebrows at this to show he was listening. She wasn't quite sure if she should tell him flat out, "You fixed the engines." Akima said in an effort to avert the news, "shouldn't we be leaving, now?"

"Yeah, you didn't know I fixed the engines? I did it while you were gone." Cale explained. He then turned to Korso as Akima stayed standing near the door, "She has a point there. We should be leaving-"

"Cale, I'm pregnant." Akima blurted out in the middle of his sentence. Both Korso and Cale slowly turned their heads to her. She stood there and smiled and patted her lower stomach.

"Cale, you ol' rascal! I knew you would do it one day!" Korso said, but Cale didn't respond. He was speechless. His jaw stayed dropped and his countenance was that of one astonished.

He slowly stood up from his chair and walked over to Akima. She expected the worst. He then hugged her and began laughing, "Akima, we're gonna have a baby. This is great!" he said as he rocked her to and fro, "What is it? Do ya know?"

"Girl!" Akima replied with an excited tone and expression.

"Wow! I'm gonna have a baby girl." Cale said, now calming down again.

"Good job, kid. Congrats Akima." Korso said as he stood and walked over to them put one arm over their shoulders, Akima on the left, Cale on the right. Just then, Stith came rushing in. "Oh, Akima! I'm so happy for you!" she said while hugging her with a great Mantrin hug.

"You knew?" Cale said, a little suspicious.

"I found out from Gune. He was rambling on about it as he frolicked down the hallways." Stith explained. Cale nodded for he understood.

For the rest of the day, they all forgot about leaving just yet. They wanted some reason to wait on Akima hand and foot; especially Cale. he kept offering to get this and that, but Akima was too independent to be slaved for. She enjoyed their concern though. She could understand why they were all of a suddenly anxious about this unexpected expectation.