Kryik ran up behind Joker's chair. Garrus threw himself into the gunner's seat.
"Where the hell were the alarms, EDI?" He demanded the AI.
"My sensors did not pick up on the Reaper approach."
"That's bad news." Garrus muttered and fired a shot that merely bounced off the Reaper's shields. "That too."
"Great..." Grumbled Joker. He pulled hard to starboard to avoid enemy fire.
"So they just dropped out of FTL on our door step?" Kryik almost shouted.
"Yeah, welcome to the party." Joker shot back.
"Where's Shepard?" Nihlus asked.
His eyes darted to Garrus expecting an answer.
"She wasn't feeling well over lunch, so I took her to the med-bay. She'll be fine. We have bigger problems."
"Right." Nihlus nodded.
He glared hard at the display readouts. The shield strength of the Reapers had increased, but the fire power had remained the same. There had to be a flaw.
"Joker, use the planet. Put it between the Reapers and as much of the armada as we can. EDI, run a full scan. I need a hole."
"Do you concur, Commander?" EDI asked Garrus.
It annoyed him that his orders were superceded by Vakarian's.
"Yeah, yeah. Busy. Do whatever he says." Garrus replied and fired.
He'd rather be the gunner than the Commander any day. More fun.
"Running scan." EDI told them.
Joker felt like he was playing dodge ball and the other team wasn't playing by the rules. The fingers of the ships each had their own canon and could focus individually on a target. Running through the constantly changing maze of death was a challenge. He loved it, until the ship dipped hard to port and shook violently under enemy fire.
"We've been hit!" He said, bringing up the damage report on the lower half of the screen. "Port side. Nothing critical, but our shields are at half. We can't take another hit."
"Then make sure we don't get hit!" Garrus shouted.
"Get Illium between us, Now!" Kryik ordered.
The ship shook hard. Shepard could hear the hull groaning. Flash backs to the destruction of the original Normandy threatened to raise her mind to panic. Chakwas waited for the ship to steady itself.
"Okay, this won't be easy." She told Shepard, "We won't be able to do a c-sec under these conditions. You're going to have to push."
"What!" Sonya shouted.
She nearly jumped out of the bed, but her legs were to weak to comply. She had been in the common washroom. Her bladder had needed emptied every ten minutes or so and she was, yet again, sitting on a steel throne when her water broke. The doors to the wash room had just hissed open as she ran to tell Garrus when the ship rocked with weapons fire. Garrus had run to her, one hand over hers against her belly. He would be needed at the guns, so she didn't tell him she was about to be in labor and simply told him to get her to the med-bay. He had done so with little question. There wasn't time. They were under attack. The labor pains started before she he had left her on the med-bed, but they had been minor compared to what she experienced now. She'd managed not to let the pain show until he'd gone. She felt as if her whole body was going to squeeze itself out of her skin. Every contraction was a ball of lightening in her gut, clinching with uncontrollable power. It would have been more comfortable to be trampled by a krogan.
"What about drugs? Give me drugs!" Sonya demeaned.
"There isn't time and there's no way to tell how it would affect the child. I'm sorry Shepard." Chakwas told her.
Jeron came rushing in the door just as Chakwas finished her sentence.
"How far?" He asked, quickly scrubbing up and donning the coat and gloves to deliver.
"Her contractions have increased rapidly. She's only a few seconds apart." Chakwas informed him.
She grabbed hold of the floor mounted bed when the Normandy pulled hard to one side and shuddered.
"I think we've just been hit! I have to get to the command deck!" Shepard said and started un-fastening the restraints to keep her on the bed.
"You're in no condition to command anything!" Chakwas shouted at her. "Now lay down and listen to me. You're in labor and apparently in denial. So just take deep breaths and try to relax."
Sonya did as she was told, shocked into obedience at the doctors sudden authoritative tone. Another contraction hit and she grit her teeth in pain.
"Dilation?" Jeron asked.
"Eleven centimeters!" Chakwas shouted back.
"Eleven?" Jeron ran across the room and peered between Shepard's raised knees.
Under ordinary circumstances she might have shot him, but with the pain that stabbed at her like daggers she decided she didn't care. The salarian's deep blue head appeared around the sheet covering her legs. His bronze ringed eyes were wide and stern.
"I need you to push, Captain. On my mark until I say 'rest'. Understand?" He instructed.
Sonya nodded desperately through clinched teeth. She could still see his speckled horns as he stood below her next to Chakwas. The elderly woman tried to give her a reassuring grin when he ship rocked again.
"Push!" Jeron ordered.
Sonya crunched into a ball, pushing as hard as she could all the while the salarian prompted her to keep pushing. She started groaning under the strain and kept up the pressure for as long as she could. She released without waiting for the order to rest.
"PUSH!" Jeron shouted.
She pushed.
"Rest. He's about to crown."
"That's it? After all that?" Sonya said, already exhausted.
Chakwas left the foot of the bed to hold her hand. The ship swerved hard to port.
"Push, push push!" Jeron ordered.
She crunched, squeezing the doctor's hand as hard as she could. The pressure she felt against her hips and the opening that was wider than it should have been was intense and possibly the most frightening thing she'd felt since dying. She felt as though the pain that tore through her would drive her mad being so similar to those of the cold and suffocation of space. She pushed and something did tear. She felt the warmth of blood and other fluids and a mass leave her body. Something caught inside her and the unmistakable feeling of foreign fingers entered her and unhooked the tiny spurs. Relief settled over her quickly, only to be replaced by the primal fear of not hearing her young crying.
"It's okay." Chakwas soothed. "It's okay."
Sucking sounds then a cry. She released the breath she was holding, but she couldn't move to see her child.
"Doctor?" She called.
The blue speckled horns came into her vision followed by dark, alien eyes and a creepy salarian smile.
"He's healthy and strong." Jeron told her and handed her the bundle of white blankets in his arms.
As her eyes fell upon the bare, rust colored carapace she could only think of one word.
"Beautiful." She breathed. "He's beautiful."