Nine Months – Community - 2
By Kudara
Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager and all who sail in her belong to Paramount/Viacom and no infringement of copyright/trade marks is intended.
Rating: Adult
Feedback: Always welcome, feedback is what encourages me to keep writing. Please let me know what you like and what you dislike about the story.
Revision History:
Summary: Getting to know the others of Alpha Squad and themselves better.
Chapter 21 - Stardate 52598.36 (August 7, 2375 09:43am)
B'Elanna sat with Elizabeth, Christina, and Amy Lewis, Lee's partner, half-listening to the conversation between them. Amy was the de facto leader of the weapons specialists,
not because of her prior occupation, but because she showed an uncanny grasp of tactics and a sure sense of where to place her people and equipment to maximize their effectiveness. Prior to her capture she had been the president of a small company providing managed computer information security services to the United States government.
The majority of B'Elanna's attention was on Seven, who with several other women were huddled around the newest addition. B'Elanna didn't know either of the baby's mothers well. Lisa Stewart had been a member of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, and was now the squads' best rifle sniper, Karen Collins had been an Emergency Medical Technician. The newborn, Heather, was Karen's second child, the oldest child Evelyn, was three, and currently sitting between her two mothers.
Karen looked up and spotted Seven examining her child curiously. "Do you know much about children, Seven?" she asked.
Seven was startled at being addressed. "No I do not," she answered finally.
"Well if you would like, you can help with Heather, that way your own won't be so much of a surprise." Karen offered.
"My own?" repeated Seven blankly.
B'Elanna froze for a second at the implications of the woman's words. Then she glanced around in realization, children, every couple had children, why hadn't it occurred to her that she and Seven would eventually as well. Hurriedly she rose, Seven was looking around as well, and from the wide eyed panicky look the blonde was getting, B'Elanna knew that Seven had reached the same conclusion.
"I'm sorry I thought you realized," Karen said uncertainly.
Seven's eyes met B'Elanna's as she crossed the intervening distance between them. "I didn't realize either," she answered the unspoken question in Seven's blue eyes, as she placed reassuring hands on the blonde's shoulders. She glanced once again toward the children playing in one corner of the room then back again to Seven, "But I guess we should have."
"Seven," Lee had come over in the confusion, her face troubled. "I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me that you didn't know. I guess because we're all so used to it by now." She waited until Seven acknowledged her words with a nod. "You won't be alone in this you know, you have B'Elanna, and you have all of us to help you," she smiled reassuringly. "And if I may say so, we do have quite a bit of combined experience," she glanced over at her own two children and smiled fondly.
Seven glanced at Lee, over Karen and her newborn, then back to B'Elanna for a long moment.
B'Elanna pushed down her own trepidation and met Seven's eyes unflinchingly. Her own doubts were less important than letting Seven know that they would deal with this together.
Seven took in a deep breath, "We will adapt," it was more of a question than statement.
More firmly B'Elanna repeated, "We will adapt," as she squeezed the blonde's shoulders reassuringly.
Seven nodded, and then moved closer to the half-Klingon, silently requesting that B'Elanna hold her.
It was a request B'Elanna was only to happy to fulfill, as feeling the blonde's slim frame resting against her own was definitely a pleasure. When they had first begun their physical relationship Seven had held back a part of herself in these hugs, it hadn't even been something B'Elanna had noticed until after Seven had asked her about Tom. It wasn't any large difference, but rather several small differences. Seven leaned into her now, relaxing completely, and molded herself as closely as she could against B'Elanna's body. Their embraces had become a statement of Seven's trust in her that B'Elanna cherished.
After a minute Seven stirred, and B'Elanna loosened her hold. Turning in the half-Klingon's arms the blonde addressed Karen. "When may I begin my training?"
"Ah," the woman replied caught by surprise, "Well no time like the present I guess, I can show you how to hold a newborn."
There were a few minutes of discussion back and forth primarily between Lee, Maria, Janice, Seven and Karen, before Seven allowed that perhaps her clinical knowledge of an infants physiology, did not in fact translate into a proper way to hold an infant so their emotional needs for security and reassurance were being met. Finally they had Seven's arms and hands arranged to their liking, and Heather was placed within them.
The blue eyes of the infant looked curiously at the being so nervously holding her, and she promptly decided to wave her arms and feet about. Seven immediately responded by holding the infant more securely against her chest as she looked down at it wide eyed, startled and momentarily concerned that she might drop the child. Once Heather quieted, the two of them, infant and woman, examined one another with intent curiosity.
B'Elanna stared at her lover, a curious sensation making itself known in her chest. What would Seven look like pregnant with their child, what would the child look like, and how would Seven look holding their own child instead of another's.
Chapter 22 - Stardate 52705.42 (September 15, 2375 11:34am)
"Contacts," B'Elanna reported, into the communications transmitter embedded in her helmet, as soon as she saw the two signals show up on the readout screen imbedded in the forearm of her coal black tactical suit.
Elizabeth immediately raised her hand in a halt gesture, and the entire unit paused and dropped to their knees, those assigned as scouts fanned out and took up forward positions their eyes trained on the forest around them.
"Contact one, 326 meters, 10 o'clock, inclination 5 degrees. Contact two, 345 meters, 1 o'clock, inclination 7 degrees." B'Elanna finished reporting. Looking toward the location of the contacts she couldn't see much of anything but the reddish grey bark of the fifty meter tall coniferous trees that made up the majority of the forest they were currently moving through.
"Scouts," remarked Christina's distinctive voice in B'Elanna's earpiece. She now knew enough about her fellow squad members to know that Christina's accent was Canadian, and was easily distinguishable from the softer drawl of Elizabeth's southern American accent.
"Likely," was Elizabeth's reply, "Dampening field?" she asked.
B'Elanna had already been verifying it's functioning, expecting the question. "Operating at 100, they don't know we're here."
"Let's keep it that way. B'Elanna, move up and join accompany rifle squad one. Rifle squad one recon forward once she is in position. All other rifle squads hold position." Elizabeth ordered.
B'Elanna jogged forward, and took up a position in the middle of the squad, near the squad leader, Amy Lewis, Lee's partner. As soon as she was in place, Amy ordered the squad to move forward. "Ok slow and easy, let's move forward 50 meters before we go to ground."
B'Elanna resisted the urge to groan at the statement. Going to ground meant just that, they would move one by one; go from cover to cover, and creep and crawl if necessary, the rest of the way. Just why their captor had given them black suits, instead of more practical camouflage one's, was anyone's guess, but it meant that they had to be extra cautious if they wanted to spot the enemy first instead of the other way around. It was both fortunate, and unfortunate for the unit, that the lack of sunlight at the forest floor discouraged a lot of undergrowth. It meant that there weren't a lot of plants or bushes to crawl through, and it meant that there wasn't much to take cover behind except for the tree trunks.
At least today was just another training mission, instead of a real one, and the 'enemy' were actually robots, instead of some unknown Delta quadrant species. But as Elizabeth had pointed out; the whole point of training was to prepare you for the real thing, and if you left your guard down in training because it was 'only training,' you had no chance in hell to ever survive the real thing.
Watching her readout screen the half-Klingon frowned at the information displayed, they had moved maybe 35 meters but the contacts were now 280 meters and 297 meters away. "Contacts on the move in our direction, now 279 meters, 10 o'clock, inclination 3 degrees; and 297 meters, 1 o'clock, inclination 5 degrees." She cursed herself for not noticing sooner as she reported the information.
She wasn't entirely sure just why but each time they trained some type of information would be denied them. This time it was knowledge of the terrain they were operating on. Her scanning equipment which would normally give a very accurate topographical readout, was currently reporting absolutely no information about the surrounding land at all.
"Halt," Amy immediately called out. As soon as everyone stopped moving she came over to where B'Elanna crouched.
"They've been moving steadily lower ever since they showed up as contacts." The half-Klingon called up the data from 10 minutes ago and ran it forward as Amy watched. "I think there is a large hill of some type in that direction that they are coming down from."
"I think your right. Elizabeth did you hear B'Elanna's report?" Amy asked.
"Yes, hold at your current location and keep watch. Keep me updated, we're going to scout around here and see if we can find a decent ambush spot." Elizabeth replied.
'If only there were some way I could manually enter in this data as topographical points,' thought B'Elanna staring at the contacts in frustration. A glimmer of an idea came to her, "Amy," she paused after the name giving the equipment time to set up a private communications channel to just the squad leader, "Do I have time to enter in some data? I would need 10 minutes, I think I can make a basic plot point topographical map of this area with the sensor data I have."
"Yea," came back the reply after a moment, "But be ready to pack up and move in two minutes or less."
B'Elanna didn't waste time replying, she just unbuckled the pack on her back and pulled out the piece of equipment she needed and began working. Eight minutes later she was looking with satisfaction at the basic topographical map of their surrounding area, compiled from the data of their own movements and those of their 'enemy'. "Amy," she waited for the necessary second, "It's done," she reported.
She waited for the older blonde woman to look over what she had done, and was not surprised when she was ordered to forward the information to the other three communications specialists.
"Woo, good job hot stuff; you've got to tell me how you managed that later." B'Elanna grinned, as she recognized Sabrina Gentry's cocky voice. Gentry was another Electronics and Communications Specialist. Originally from San Francisco, she had cornered the half-Klingon as soon as she found out that B'Elanna had been to the city, and asked her several questions about how her home town had fared since 2013 when she had been abducted.
"Congratulations, B'Elanna quick thinking," Elizabeth praised her privately. "You know this means you get to put together another training session, right?" The next communication from her was to the entire unit, "Rifle squad one fall back and rejoin the main unit."
B'Elanna chuckled to herself, and didn't bother to reply. She had been doing a lot of training sessions on a wide range of subjects for the squad. Mostly the robots had allowed it except for two classes dealing with some of the changes in technology since 2000. B'Elanna couldn't figure out whether or not their captor thought it might help them escape, or was not useful for them to know.
Seven had been doing much of the same thing for the hostages. Only her discussions more often ranged around advances in science and medicine, as an unusual number of the hostages were from medical or public service professions. There were two other doctors besides Nancy Miller, three certified nurse practitioners, one nurse-midwife, six registered nurses, four licensed practical nurses, three Emergency Medical Technicians, and two firefighters.
It only took B'Elanna and rifle squad one a five minutes to rejoin the unit. Elizabeth nodded to them as they came up. "Ok heads up, ninety meters to the north east there is a hill with quite a few rock formations, lots of cover. Christine and I have come up with this plan of battle…"