Author's Note: Glad you liked the first chapter. Thanks to all of you for reviews, and to Majik especially for the suggestion. Don't worry, all (or most, at least) will be revealed eventually.

The Child

Chapter Two: Delivery

By B.L.A. the Mouse

Trance recovered from the rather startling announcement first. "Okay, Harper will fix your ship, and Rommie and I will take care of you. Just lie down here," patting the gurney a 'droid had brought down, "and we'll take you to Med deck."

Mention of his name startled Harper back to reality. "Yeah, that's it. Do what Trance says, and I'll look after your ship."

Dylan shook off his remaining shock, sense of chivalry kicking in. He hurried over to Carmen to give her assistance. He was surprised to discover that, while the woman looked solidly built even aside from her stomach, she was quite light as she leaned on his arm. "I'm Captain Dylan Hunt, and you're aboard the Andromeda Ascendant. You may have heard of us?"

Carmen glanced up and smiled briefly as the pain from the last contraction abated. "Yeah. You're trying to restore the Commonwealth." She shrugged. "Least I picked a good system to be hit by an asteroid in."

"That would explain the dent." They had reached the gurney; he helped her up onto it. "Relax. You're in good hands."

"Isn't that what they always tell you?"

Trance took over as they left the hanger. "Now what exactly..." she started as her voice faded out.

Tyr walked over to Dylan, deciding to weigh in. His opinion was pretty much his usual, albeit for different reasons. "I don't trust her."

The captain was frankly incredulous. "Tyr, she's one woman who happens to be in labor. I don't think she's about to take over the ship." Privately, he thought Tyr may have finally cracked under the weight of his normal paranoia, but he wasn't about to say so.

"Not in her circumstances, sir. They appear to be quite genuine. There is something about her that does not lend her to being trustworthy." Now he knew he was pushing it, but that automatic distrust of certain individuals had served him well on occasion.

"Tyr Anasazi, I do believe you just professed to using intuition for something. Isn't that my job?"

"Perhaps."

Harper had been scrambling around in Carmen's ship for the last minute or two. Now he joined the other two men with a quick opinion. "It's shot, boss. Half the major systems are trashed and I don't know how many subsystems. We can fix her just enough to get Carmen to spacedock somewhere with more resources, but not much beyond that- we just don't have the parts. What did she do to her ship?"

"She said something about an asteroid?" Dylan rubbed at the back of his neck, then dropped his hand back down to his side helplessly. "I have no idea beyond that."

"Whatever. It's going to take a couple of weeks to do that much, even with the brilliance and expertise of yours truly. And that's, shall we say, a hopeful guesstimate. Even if Carmen weren't..." he squirmed uncomfortably, "...she'd still be here for a while."

Up in Med deck, Carmen herself had been outfitted with a patient gown after being permitted a short- very short- shower by Trance, to clean off the smoke and soot residue. Her hair was now revealed as being a bad blond dye job- the earlier streaks had been grunge only. Most of them, anyway.

Beka had left the ship in autopilot and come down to Med deck to see who they had taken aboard. Now she sat with her, chatting between contractions and trying to get any useful information- full name, job, etc.- out of her, without much luck. Trance was taking care of the sprained ankle and Rommie was gathering instruments.

"So who's the father?" Beka asked, only partly as a conversational gambit. That bit of information could help discover who their uninvited guest was.

Carmen replied shortly, "Don't know. He's human, at least."

Beka's eyebrows shot up. Shed hoped that their guest was someone who had at least gotten a name before... well... anyway. "One night stand?"

"Something like that."

There was a brief silence in the room as she went through another contraction, the only sounds mechanical and the incidental noises caused by two people trying to take care of a patient. Carmen had refused the other woman's proffered hand and instead twisted the bed sheet in her hands to help diffuse the pain. It was quicker now, each wave only a minute or two apart. Please God, she thought, not quite a prayer, not exactly a curse, just let me have the baby and get out of here! In her opinion, the crew of the Andromeda was nice enough, but they were poking their noses too much into her business. She liked her privacy, and that did not include people asking about the kid she'd had the misfortune to get pregnant with. Unfortunately, even without hearing their engineer's report, she knew that she was stuck on this ship for at least a few more days than was comfortable.

Beka was back; she had left to check with Trance. "You've got about five minutes before you have to start pushing."

"Great," Carmen muttered, sinking against the backrest.

"We're going to have to set up a medical file for you," she continued. "It would help if we had your full name."

"I told you my name- Carmen."

She sighed. This woman was starting to frustrate her. "Fine." New topic, new topic. "What's your job? Do you have a boss that we need to notify about the fact that you're... um..."

"Having a baby? No." At least this question she could answer without revealing too much. "I'm self-employed. Courier, cargo, and passenger service." She stopped talking for another contraction.

As soon as it was over, Beka kept up the conversation, taking advantage of the small revelation. "Really? I used to captain a cargo ship. Pilot, too. Then, of course, I joined up with Dylan, so... Do you have a business partner or anything?"

"No. Just me and the Starlight."

"You should have more crew. It's easier to run the ship, and it's better in case something like this happens again."

"This will never happen again."

Beka had to resist the urge to beat on something. "I meant just sick or injured."

"I've never been sick and I don't get injured."

"Oh-kay." She decided to let the topic drop for now. She noticed Trance and Rommie coming over. "Not to ruin your mood or anything, but I think you're up."

"Damn."

"It's a boy!" Trance announced, over the screaming baby. "Congratulations." She finished wrapping him in a small blanket, and Rommie took over taking care of Carmen. Trance attended to some of the details like weighing and measuring him; when she had finished, she carried him over to his mother. "Do you want to hold him?"

Carmen shook her head emphatically. "No."

"Why not?" Beka asked. "You're going to have to hold him eventually. Why not get the hang of it now?"

"Maybe I do have to hold it eventually, but I'm putting it off as long as possible." Catching the eyes of the other three, all with varying degrees of confusion and curiosity, she sighed and explained, "I never wanted to get pregnant in the first place. I was between runs so I picked some guy up at a drift bar, my contraceptive failed, end of story."

"How are you going to take care of him?" Trance wondered, frowning. The child had quieted as she held him, but now he fussed a little; she soothed him with ease. It had been quite a while since she'd helped with her own siblings, but it wasn't that hard to remember.

"I'll figure something out," Carmen said, dismissing the worry.

Of the other three, Rommie kept her silence. She'd noticed, while the other two didn't, that Carmen had referred to the child as "it", adding to the list of things that bothered her no end about the situation. She consulted her databanks about a few statistics- they didn't look good. A lot of unwanted children nowadays were sold into slavery, and those that didn't usually had emotional and drug problems if they didn't die young. She herself had once or twice caught herself regretting that Harper hadn't been able to give her the ability to have children, even if it was theoretically and practically impossible; here there was a mother who treated her baby like an insect she had happened to find aboard her ship. Stock animals were treated better than that! Rather than say something she shouldn't, she decided to try asking something none of the others in the room would be surprised at. "What are you going to name him?"

"I have no idea," Carmen shrugged.

Rommie left hearing range on the pretext of finding an instrument.