Dana Sterling Katsulas felt wet skin through thin-gloved hands.
She looked at whom she is holding. About ten pounds, just a foot tall, with two arms and two legs and a huge head.
She was holding a baby girl.
Her daughter.
She was a mother, now.
For a few seconds, she pondered that statement.
She was looking at her daughter.
She was holding her child.
She was now a mother.
She looked at her husband George, who is smiling. She then turned her face back toward her baby girl.
"Mommy's here," said Dana.
At that moment, only she, George, and the baby existed.
Oooooooooooo
Dana Sterling Katsulas lies down on the cot in the provisional guest berthing area aboard the SDF-3 Pioneer. For the past week and a half ever since hearing the news from Lieutenant Jessica Aliganga of the United Nations Spacy Nurse Corps, she had been think about the baby inside her, even during meetings with Admiral Rick Hunter and his senior staff.
She feels tired now. She had noticed she had been feeling tired more. She even had another medical exam since she first found out.
Memories of the time she first found out she was pregnant, more that ten years ago, surface. She recalled sharing the news with George, and then with her in-laws, and then with Bowie and Musica and Marie and Sean and Louis and Angelo.
Her body is tired, and yet her mind is restless.
Her mind restless, she goes for a walk around the provisional guest berthing area, hoping that her mind would become tired as well.
She sees her mother sitting down, still recognizable with her green hair. She wears a simple blouse and shorts.
She recalls the feelings of abandonment that she felt.
And yet..
"Hi, Mom," she says softly.
"Oh, hi," says Miriya Parino Sterling. "Feeling all right?"
"Uh, trying my best, since I'm stuck here."
"We're all stuck here, at least four hundred light years from the nearest star." Miriya stands up and opens a curtain, revealing the cot in the sleeping space reserved for her. It is a simple cot, and there are clothes strewn on the deck. "Well, an Army colonel wouldn't have much to do on a deep space vessel."
"Yeah, the captain won't be too happy if I got in his crew's way. I...did speak with him. He mentioned he learned he was having another baby the last night he was with his wife."
"So many left behind."
Dana yawns. "Well, I'll need some sleep." She turns and takes a step towards her own cot. She then places her hand on her baby.
"Uh, Mom," she says.
"What is it?" asks her mother. "I am getting ready for some sleep."
Dana's heart races. A thought arises that this is partly due to the pregnancy hormones, recalling their effect on her psyche the previous two times this had happened.
"I'm having a baby," she blurts out, as if those words a ball she had to pass to her mother before she would be too far to catch it.
Miriya looks at her, taking a few seconds to process those words. "so you're having another baby," she replies.
"Another." Her daughter pauses. "I suppose you would have heard about my other children."
"Yes," replies Miriya. "I know you've gotten married and had two children, from what I've heard. Your dad and I never got to meet our grandchildren. What are they like?"
Dana pulls out a locket from under her blouse and presses a tiny button. Miriya sees a hologram of a girl with dark brown hair tied in a ponytail who appears to be about ten years old. "This is Em," she says. "Emilia Diana Katsulas. She does typical girl stuff, like riding bikes and going to school and spending time with friends. Complains about having to study, though not as often as other girls, I think"
"And my other grandchild?"
Dana presses a button on her locket, and Em is replaced with a hologram of a boy, roughly five years of age, with light brown hair, dressed in denim suspenders. "He's Nick. Nicodemes Stefan Katsulas. Typical boy,. I think. Plays with toys, watches TV. Sometimes we take him to the park so he can play in the playground."
"And you're still married to their dad."
Dana presses another button and shows her mother another hologram. Miriya recognizes her daughter wearing a white wedding dress. Dana had been standing next to a man with black hair, a black moustasche, and olive-complected skin. He wears a silk tuxedo.
"That is Georgious Alexandros Katsulas, my husband," Dana says, her pride obvious from the tone of her voice. "He is the best man that ever existed. And no, I didn't try to kill him on our first date."
Miriya smiles. "You knew he was a good man. So you are now Mrs. Ka..Kat..."
"Katsulas. Mrs. Katsulas."
"Mrs. Katsulas," says Miriya.
"I wish I could show you the wedding album."
"I notice you go by Colonel Sterling while on duty."
"I do it in Steve's memory,"Dana says softly. "I've chosen to stay on active duty until we liberate Earth. I owe it to him."
'I think of him every day. Not knowing what happened..."
"And now George and Em and Nick are wondering what happened to me."
"We'll get through this."
Dana suddenly stands up upon seeing Admiral Rick Hunter walk into the guest berthing area.
"I was wondering," Miriya says to Rick. "Have you ever met Dana's kids?"
The admiral pauses upon hearing the question. "I think twice," he replies. "I mean,my time's consumed helping the Sentinels Alliance fight the Invid, so I couldn't spend all that much time with Dana and her family. They seem okay. I am sure their dad is holding them up while Dana's away."
"George will hold them up," says Dana. "Because that's what he does."
The Army colonel and expectant mother walks to her cot and within seconds, falls asleep.
ooooooooo
"So you oscillate the fold field?" asks Captain Rodrigo Ramirez.
"Yes," answers Dr. Emil Lang. "Zimilar principle to how oscillating electromagnetic vields create electromagnetic vaves."
Once again, Admiral Hunter is meeting with the senior staff inside a small conference room aboard the Pioneer. They had been discussing ways on how to use the auxiliary fold drive to send a signal to the fleet.
"This does not mean there's a fleet waiting to receive our signal," says Lieutenant Colonel Erik Redfield. The others glance at the Air Force colonel. "But we won't know if we don't try."
"Any thoughts, Captain?" asks Hunter.
"If this goes wrong, our subatomic particles will be scattered across the galaxy," says the Pioneer captain.
"Zer iz another possibility," replies the robotechnologuist. "If zomething goes wrong, ve can be crushed in a singularity."
"We're not capable of operating as a generational ship," says Ramirez. "Not under these conditions. We have to take this risk; it's better than just waiting until we starve to death. We do it."
They all have been here for so long. At times, it had felt as if the Milky Way Galaxy was some mythical place far, far, away from times long, long ago, and it is beyond debate nearly all the officers, crew, and Space marines aboard feel that way.
"It's agreed," says Admiral Hunter.
Oooooooo
Colonel Dana Sterling looks as her mother checks the seals on her spacesuit. She notices Dr. Emil Lang and Command Sergeant Major Walera Gashtar also checking their spacesuits.
"You know," says the command sergeant major, "I have a son, Gabe, who was lost in the previous attempt to liberate Earth. I didn't know what happened to him until a lieutenant named Marcus Rush visited me and told me he spoke with Gabe. I'm doing this so I can meet him."
"That's nice," says Dana.
"I wonder why you never reached out to us for the past thirteen years," asks Miriya.
"It's well..." says Dana. "At first I was so hurt and mad. But after marrying George, after Em and Nick are born, I..I felt ashamed, ashamed of how I treated you, and my little sister. I felt I couldn't just go back to you."
Miriya pauses. "I'd like to say we would have welcomed you with open arms at any time these past thirteen years," she says. "We are ready now. I'm going with Dr. Lang so I can meet my grandchildren for the first time."
"Let's go," says Lang.
"Good luck," says Admiral Hunter, wearing a stiff white armored coat over his service khakis.
Miriya and the others head out to the airlock.