Chapter 11: Spatial Rift Part 6 – Mounting Pressure
With Coran enslaved, Pidge will do whatever she has to in order to rescue her friend. Yet even brilliant plans can be thwarted by delays. How much time does she have? Can Coran hold out?

November 5th, 2332

Coran awoke in the dirt, wishing he could afford to slip back into oblivion. Long vivid lashes ached across his shoulders, his chest, his back. His tunic was tattered shreds edged in dried blood. They must not want him dead yet, because he was still here and breathing. For a minute he lay there, unmoving, taking stock of his own body. His wrists and ankles felt heavy, bound by shackles. He was not the only person in this cell either. When he opened his eyes, he found that he was sprawled out in a corner, in completely undignified fashion, in a cell with eight other slaves. None of them were the ones he had been captured with. Of course, they would have split them up. No reason to give them opportunities to continue to plot, or to corroborate stories and make sure they were saying the same things. Coran would just have to trust the others not to break either.

Slowly, he sat up. The others looked at him, but avoided him, probably on pain of torture if they helped him any. They kept their eyes averted as he tested his limbs and made sure everything was still working. The lashing had been long, and painful, but Coran had endured pain before. He could do so now. There were too many lives at stake for him to give in.

He didn't know what time it was, but he soon found out as the guards came around, shouting for everyone to fall in line and prepare for morning meal.

Not wanting to draw more attention to himself, Coran lined up behind the others without a word. The guard looked in at them, and Coran stood straight. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing his pain.

They walked in line, and found themselves in the line of slaves going down to the mines directly. Coran didn't say a word. He remembered that there had been that very plain, concrete room designed to feed about the number of people he saw on this shift.

Back down the long tunnel they went, coming out at the bottom of the mines. Moving briskly, they were shuffled into the dining hall, and ordered to sit at the long tables there. Coran took his space in the middle of a bench.

Morning meal consisted of what he could only call gruel. It was gray, lumpy, doughy, and nearly flavorless. It was also only vaguely warm. Given its other qualities, he was rather grateful for its lack of taste.

He ate quickly, noting that everyone else practically shoveled down their food. This implied they would be given very little time, and no warnings. By following their example, he finished just as a shrill whistle broke the air. Everyone dropped their spoons into their bowls and stood sharply. Coran did the same.

The Yoan shift lead came in then, barked orders at the Yoan guards who had led their teams in, and let again.

Then they were marched back outside and taken to one of the lines of tools. No one gave him any instructions.

Coran, not wanting another excuse to be whipped just yet, picked up the nearest pickaxe, and started hacking at the wall in front of him. Apparently, this was the correct response, because no one else addressed him.

It was heavy going, bone-crunching work. Coran had always prided himself on maintaining his level of fitness over his more than six-hundred years of life, even before sleeping in stasis for ten-thousand years. By the end of the day, he felt that his regimen had been far from adequate…at least for slave life. His hands had blisters that had formed and broken, stinging for hours. His back muscles spasmed, made worse by the whip gashes across them. His arms continued lifting the tool only out of reflex and sheer will, relying on his Altean strength to make progress.

There was no lunch break.

The only respite they got, at all, were the slaves assigned to bring around buckets of warm, sulfur-smelling water, with a small cup that would get dipped in and in again, and everyone shared it if they wanted to drink. Coran was vaguely surprised the whole place hadn't caught sick from something. If they did, he suspected the sick would still be forced to work anyway.

For dinner, they were marched back into the dining room, fed more gray slop—this time with a side of mystery white slop—and taken back to the slave pens, where they were marched briefly through a long concrete room with metal grates in the floor. They were ordered to strip, and told to do their business.

Coran bit his tongue. It was difficult to refrain from the many snarky and infuriated responses that came to his lips. This was both disgusting and inhumane. That, he suspected, was the point.

But he did have to go. As soon as they were done, two Yoan walked in with two large, powerful hoses, and blasted them clean, and the refuse washed away down the drains.

Clean rags were pulled out of bins at the other end, and then they were returned to their cells. Coran could only presume the discarded clothing would get washed and handed back to whichever slave got it next.

Or at least, everyone else was returned to the cell. The military guard stopped Coran at the doorway. "You will come with me."

"Where are we going?" Coran asked the first question he had voiced all day. He was pretty certain he already knew the answer.

"Commander Bonta wants another word with you."

November 6th, 2332

"And that's my plan." Katie looked around the briefing room table at Golron, and his assembled seconds and other ranking resistance members and representatives of the groups living in Leaftown. That now included Priin, on behalf of the Vidorans.

On the table in front of them lay two days and nights of furious work. Katie had never done so much with so little in materials and tools, but there it was: a tiny, functional flying drone that was nearly silent, could have its light turn on or off at her will to avoid being seen, and had two small arms capable of manipulating basic doors and switches and attaching her tech to wherever she wanted it. She was going to hack the entire compound, and she was getting Coran back.

Golron nodded as he looked at her maps. "It's promising, if you can get your controllers in the places you say you can. That will take the most time."

Katie nodded. "It may not be as fast as I want, but it's our best bet and it risks the fewest lives. All we need an insurgent team to do when the time is right is be available to lead escapees away on new routes that still don't lead them straight here, like we've done before. Go in well-armed, and provide organization. Anyone on the inside who has been here will know what to do and who to follow as long as a team shows up. They can help coordinate the other escaping prisoners. Anyone who won't follow, leave them, but I suspect we'll have very few who wouldn't take the invitation to riot. They're definitely not going to want to stay when I get done with the place."

Because she was going to blow the place up so thoroughly it would be nothing but a useless pile of rubble.

"You turned dirt…into explosives." Ssisp looked at the example incendiary device Katie had placed on the table. The rest were safely away in the workshop, far from anything that might set them off before she hit her remote detonators. It was a small, round object little larger than a golf ball, and unlikely to be noticed where she planned to plant them. Unfortunately, the drone wasn't large enough to carry them all at once, but a few nights of Katie working at it would get everything in place.

Katie shrugged. "You have excellent nitrogen on this planet. A little chemistry and Boom—please forgive the pun—explosives. Don't poke it. They're powerful."

No one tried to touch it.

"Any other questions?"

Golron nodded. "Just one. When can you get started?"

November 9th, 2332

Getting everything in place was a long, exhausting process. The only way to hide the drone was to fly it in at night, and it had to go all the way to and from Leaftown in order to be charged and to make sure nothing happened to it if it were left closer to sit and charge by day. Katie would have preferred setting up closer to the mines, but there was no way she was going to make multiple mile treks in the dark both directions and get it all done. The drone flew faster than she could walk.

Four nights in, she was nearly half-way done. With the cameras on all sides, it was impossible to sneak up on the drone, which made it easier to tuck it out of view if a guard came within possible visual range. Which they did with annoying regularity.

The first night she had focused on taking control of the storage buildings: food, non-edible supplies, and even the building set up as the laundry, as well as the kitchens. Electrical access to all of them, communications access to all of them and, in a flash of brilliance she set one of the explosives under the water connection on the outside of the building when she was lacing them around the other buildings as well.

It took the entire second and third nights to set explosives and rig her controls and access to the barracks building, which did in fact sit on top of the slave pens, which were dug down into the ground. That was particularly tricky, because it was the most likely area for the drone to be spotted, and she needed to set the explosives to blow the barracks, but not collapse the ground below the building in on any slaves left in the cells. Her smallest charges went on the doors in the slave pens, hidden up at the top so the doors would fall down.

The fourth night was devoted to the mines themselves. Taking the drone down the tunnel, Katie carefully laid charges everywhere from inside the buildings, to the roof of the mines, to the doorway they had come through. Destroying the fixed point for the portal should make it impossible for it to accidentally send anyone through ever again.

It also meant admitting they would never be able to use it to get back, but Katie was certain at this point that it was a dead end. No one she had questioned about it here had any idea who had built it, or when, other than it was clearly very old and had probably been lost underground for millennia, just like its counterpart on the other end.

That door was, literally, closed to them.

Katie placed the last tiny explosive in the mines, and slowly steered her way back up the tunnel, keeping close to the ceiling in case anyone glanced down, to avoid being spotted. At the edge, she paused, carefully creeping out and dodging into the shadows. The best way out was not out the gates, which she still needed to set charges on, but around behind the buildings and out in the darkest shadows where the trees cast the rocks into darkness. It took longer, but it was worth the risk.

The gates would have to wait for another night, just like setting explosives on the administration building where they had captured Coran, and where she now knew they were torturing him. Or at least, that was her suspicion, when the drone caught them marching him—staggering and bloody—from the building in the middle of the night, back to the pens.

It only fueled her fire.

Slowly, she steered her way back around, and then into the forest. Once in the cover of trees, it was much easier to bring the drone up just above the tree cover, and make a much straighter break for Leaftown. The Yoan did not have air surveillance, especially at night, which meant Rover Two, as Katie had named the little drone, wasn't going to be noticed.

At last, after nearly five hours of constant piloting from her computer, the drone landed back on the charging platform up near the solar panels, and tucked under its protective shelter, plugged in, and went into charging mode.

Katie sat back from the table, and blinked her eyes several times. The strain of doing this in the middle of the night was definitely getting to her, but she couldn't stop. She didn't know how long Coran and the others had.

"I thought I would find you here."

Katie turned and saw Iffina, frowning in the doorway, holding a hot steaming mug, and a plate of those pickled purple vegetable strips that had become one of Katie's go-to favorites. Fortunately, they grew everywhere in the forests, so there was a plentiful supply. "I've just finished."

"If anyone else could do this, I would have chased you to bed ages ago," Iffina scolded, even as she sighed and set both items down on the table.

Katie did not say that if anyone else could do this, she would have been happy to let them. The truth was, she didn't feel that way at all. Maybe if it had been Hunk, or Matt, or her dad, but they weren't here, and she was. "Thank you," she said instead, reaching for a strip and scarfing it down in three bites. "Now maybe someone will stop pounding me sore." She spoke to her belly, where she had been kicked and punched for hours. That was the norm now, enough that as much as everything was stretched taught, and still growing, she was sore inside and outside, and the bigger he or she got, the less room they had to squirm, so the more they did. Just a few more weeks. Two months. We can do this. You'll have all the room to stretch out you want. If she didn't run out first.

"I'm not sure it's magic," Iffina smiled. "But it is food."

"And I'm grateful." Katie ate another strip, then picked up the mug of what proved to be the herbal tea Iffina blended herself. She took a sip, and contemplating just putting her feet up and sleeping in the briefing room. The idea of waddling up and down all those steps just to get back to her bed felt arduous at best.

Outside, she heard rumbling.

"Is that thunder?"

Iffina nodded. "Storms are coming in. It's about time too. The rainy season is late this year."

Rain… was going to mess with her plans. Katie cursed silently. "That will delay things. I still have another couple of nights of work before we can put the plan in motion." They could set it off in the rain, but she needed dry skies for the drone work. "Do you have any idea how long the storm will last?"

"Sometimes a night, but often days. I'm getting the sense of this one, that it may be a long one." Iffina's ears twitched. That was another thing Katie found fascinating about her species. Much like the wild animals of Earth, Chicids were excellent at feeling weather changes. Even as a sentient species, they had stayed connected to their planet. They made excellent meteorologists. "Might be three or four days."

Katie cursed again, less silently. "Well, I can't change the weather."

"Not that I wouldn't put it past you to try," Iffina commented with a wry smile. Her brown eyes twinkled within her white fur. "But it should give you some time to rest up. You've barely slept since your friend was taken."

"Would you be able to sleep?"

"I am a physician. I have learned to sleep when I have time to sleep, regardless of how worried I am for my friends or family. There is always someone who is captured. If I did not sleep when I was worried, I would never sleep."

Katie nodded, feeling a little twinge of guilt. She was not the only one worried. There were others here who were closer to the other captives as well. They were a family in their own way, as disparate as their group was. Hundreds of mostly unrelated members of different races, brought together out of a common need to survive. The Coalition had been formed on nothing less.

The Paladins had bonded from no more than that in the first place. Sometimes it was hard to remember the days when they mostly hadn't gotten along. When Keith and Lance had legitimately practically hated each other, and none of them could agree on how to do anything, let alone trust each other. Now… she would have given anything to have them with her, or to be home, safe among them.

"That's true." A tear ran slowly down her cheek, and she wiped it away quickly, before finishing her snack. "All right. I'll go to bed on one condition."

"What's that?" Iffina asked.

"Help me get out of this chair."

November 12th, 2332

The rain lasted for days. With no immediate work to do, and Golron not requesting her input due to the fact they were not planning any raids until hers was ready, Katie was once again without anything to occupy her hands or her mind. Which, as it turned out, meant that her body decided it was time to catch up on the normal modes of being pregnant… eating and sleeping. She made it back to her bed, and then spent the next forty-eight hours asleep, or eating the meals she was sure Iffina or one of her assistants was leaving in her room. The times she was awake, she made it to the toilets and back, and ate food, before passing out again.

It was only on waking up in the late morning of the third rainy day, that Katie felt human again. Easing herself into a sitting position on the edge of her bed, she noticed that, as usual, Iffina had left her breakfast. It was only then, however, that she noticed how much food there was. They must be giving me part of someone else's portion. Realistically, probably from the missing people. Though she couldn't be ungrateful. It was the first time in weeks she hadn't felt starving. She still polished off the entire plate in a matter of minutes, and probably could have eaten more. A kick from inside told her that someone else was still hungry, too. Katie rubbed her belly and sighed. You are so your father's kid. I wish we were with him. You and I would be eating like royalty, and sleeping in a big soft bed with a pile of pillows, and floating in the pool, and taking long hot showers, and getting those amazing back massages… Okay those would mostly be for me, but I think you'd like that. And your sister would be so excited.

But the chance that they would be home any time soon was just unrealistic. The message Coran had sent might reach Earth, but it would still take months or years likely before someone in Coalition space picked up on it. It had been a terrible long shot to begin with. They would be here, on this planet, for years… she wasn't willing to admit defeat and say forever. But they would be living here.

Katie looked around the room and realized, with a sinking feeling, that she had nothing ready for a baby. No clothes, no crib, no diapers… the only thing she didn't need to really worry about was bottles. Even if they had such a thing on this planet—and they might, in civilization—too much stuff would be a burden. Feeding the baby would be the only thing she could do without having to find supplies. She made a note to ask Iffina, and the families she knew, if there was anything around that she might be able to use that was spare. She was hopeless when it came to making clothes.

She was startled by a knock on the wood of the doorframe. "Come in."

Iffina's little assistant, Missa, poked her fluffy head in, and smiled. "Assta's eggs are hatching! She said if you wanted, you could come watch."

Now that was worth getting up for. Katie smiled. "Absolutely. Missa, can you help me with these?" She pointed at her shoes. Getting them on was harder and harder, but they didn't have comfy fluffy slippers here, and she couldn't see her feet anymore.

"Of course!" Missa came in, temporarily shedding her waterproof cape that kept her fur dry. "Can't have wet feet."

Once those were on, Katie took a moment to change into a clean tunic and comb her hair out of the mess it had become after two days of sleeping. Then she pulled on her own cape and followed Missa the short distance to Assta and Ssisp's.

Inside, all was warmth and light. Several additional lamps had been permitted for warmth, and the humidity from the warm soil filled the room, held in by extra drapes at the door. It wasn't quite a sauna, but it was a contrast from the chilly wet outside.

Ssisp was sitting stiffly on the ground, staring intently at the eggs, which were already twitching and rocking, and several had cracks.

Assta, despite this being her first time, just looked serenely happy as she waited. Katie was impressed by—and a little jealous of—how quickly Thaal skin tightened back up. Its elasticity was impressive. As distended into flaps of loose folds as it had been just a couple of weeks before, they had already shrunk back nearly three-quarters. As such, she looked much less deflated, and more like the lean, vigorous shape of the other Thaal Katie had seen.

"I'm glad you're here," Assta gave her a hug, and a bright smile. "Without you, they would never have been able to live."

"I hope they appreciate that someday," Katie smiled back. "How long have they been moving?"

Iffina was there as well, and Katie was relieved to see there was a chair she could use, instead of having to try and get up and down from the floor.

"Four hours," Assta replied. "It can take them anywhere from that long to half a day to hatch."

"Well, they look like they're in a hurry," Katie commented as she took the chair, and looked at the eggs.

They had been uncovered now, so they would have open air to hatch in, which explained why they were keeping it so warm in here. But it really gave them room to move, and they definitely were. Every egg was moving, though some more vigorously than others. The ones with cracks were squirming and hopping.

In a hurry still took time. It was another fifteen minutes before the first egg split open, and a tiny baby Thaal tumbled out across the dirt. Assta was by it immediately, making soothing noises that Katie still didn't fully understand. The Thaal language was one of clicks and hisses and other noises, that were meant only for the ears of Thaal. They used a different language to communicate with other species, and Katie had not tried to pry into the words they didn't want to share. Perhaps it wasn't something that really translated.

Soon after, another egg came fully open, then another.

Ssisp also reached out and helped as his offspring were soon tumbling out all over the place, and making little crying noises. Assta had an entire bowl of what looked like very large mealworms squirming and ready.

Katie refrained from commenting. The babies, aside from having tiny arms and legs to go with their long necks, torsos, and tails, really did look more like earth lizards than their parents. But they were sentient babies, like hers. Caitlin would have found this fascinating.

Within an hour, fifteen of them had hatched, and it was clear that it was not going to take half a day for the rest. They had all waited inside their mother more than long enough before being laid. They were eager to be out of their shells.

Assta cleaned them all down and wrapped them warmly as they were fed. Ssisp held the others until she was ready for them, though Katie had to avoid laughing. The longer it went on the more overwhelmed the poor father looked as if he had only just realized the implications of having a swarm of twenty-seven offspring at one time.

When they got to twenty hatchlings, Katie offered to hold a few. They were tiny, but very expressive and squirmy for newborns. But then, like many species, they were far more advanced in their development than a newborn human. Once each was cocooned in a little wash-cloth sized pre-warmed blanket, and had been fed one or two of the giant mealworms, they settled quickly into slumber, making it easier to hold several at once. "They're so perfect."

"Aren't they?" Assta looked deliriously happy. "Just a few left, and then we can all have a nice warm nap."

Katie looked at the last few, who were still struggling, but the eggs were all cracked now. "What do you do if one can't get themselves out?" she asked curiously.

"Then we will help them," Assta replied. "But it is healthier for them if they are able to break out on their own."

"And how do you tell if they're boys or girls?" It was perhaps, an odd question, but as the differences Katie had noted in the parents were not immediately evident in the offspring, it seemed a fair one.

"That will take a few days," Assta admitted with a chuckle. "They are a bit small yet to tell, but they will grow. There is a difference in how the scales grow around their excretory holes, and of course the girls will have an egg canal opening, which has a unique shape. At this size though, it is difficult to see them, even for parents. As we work it out, it will give us time to decide on each one's name."

"I hope you had a long list of ideas," Katie commented. She and Hunk had taken long enough coming up with Caitlin's name. They had barely had time to start talking about names for a second. All she had to go from was their original list. Since Hunk wasn't here to voice an opinion, she was going to be choosing on her own.

"Oh, we do. We have it narrowed down to about fifty."

November 15th, 2332

Rain did not improve life for a slave, Coran discovered early and unpleasantly. Aside from being vaguely cleaner, there was no attempt made to keep them dry on their way to or from the mines. They ate wet. They worked wet—which was incredibly dirty work—and then returned wet. The only time they were really clean was after the nightly hosing. By the time he was dry in the morning, it was time to go get wet again.

Not that Coran was given the gift of a night's rest often, if at all. He seemed to have become the Commander's favorite toy. Coran had seen the other members of his raid team at a distance: some working in the mines, and some in cells as he went past. They all looked as horrid as he felt the first few days, but quickly Coran noticed that their wounds seemed to be healing, while he bore more and more marks of Bonta's abuses. When Bonta bored of the whip, he had taken to using the knife to leave strategic little marks that stung, and would probably scar, but would not kill him, whenever Coran refused to answer, or answered with an obvious, blatant lie in defiance.

After the knife, Bonta had decided he was more interest in something more direct contact, and brutal, and had taken to punching Coran directly, and mostly in the face.

Tonight, he had done the unthinkable—he had brought in a razor and shaved Coran bald, mustache included. Clearly it was an attempt to break him down by attacking his vanity and his self-confidence.

The mirror Bonta held in front of Coran's face as he taunted Coran had shown a face that was barely recognizable, and not just without the hair. It was bruised, swollen, and cut. But Coran refused to be intimidated and he would not give up.

Tonight, as they half-dragged him back across the open central grounds, Coran noticed it was the first night in several that it was not raining. The sky was clear, and as they walked a flicker of movement caught his eye. Coran did not dare turn his head, but he did glance that direction with his eyes.

Was that… a small flying device? It had moved so quickly he wasn't sure he wasn't hallucinating, but it might be. Katie had been working on one for months, but hadn't been able to get the parts machined she needed. Maybe she had managed after all. If there was one thing Coran had confidence in, it was that Katie would not give up attempting to rescue him while he lived. Golron had rescued his own people and others from here for over two years.

Coran had no idea if the thing had even seen him, or was close enough to read an expression, but he flashed it a quick wink just in case. I'm okay. I haven't given up. I know you'll get this.

Whenever the time came, he would be ready. For now, he walked a little slower, and looked a little more broken. Best to let the Yoan think he was becoming compliant.

"That's it, it's done." Katie verified that the drone was charging back in its little station and then closed the software. "Everything is in place and ready whenever we are."

"Good," Golron gave a nod of approval. "With this much planned, as long as enough slaves escape and enough damage is done, the mine will have to be closed for years to make any repairs, if not permanently."

"They would have to start digging from scratch when I'm done with the place." Katie wasn't going to leave anything standing if she could help it. "Though I am thinking we might want to give our people on the inside warning of what's coming. All I would need to do is fly the drone in and leave a scrap note. We could even write it on something edible, like a gnossis leaf."

"If you think you can sneak it in, a warning would be wise. It will be better organized that way." Golron nodded. "Though you may only get one chance. Iffina tells me there is more rain coming."

"Ugh. Is it always like this?"

"No," Golron shook his head. "Often, it's worse. It will also keep getting colder. I will write out several copies of a message, on the leaves as you suggested. You can deliver them to whichever and however many of my men you can find with that drone of yours in a night." He looked thoughtful. "We may need to pull this off in the rain. Or continue to put it off far too long to be effective. Though it might be to our advantage. They won't be expecting us during rain."

"The explosions may not be as effective if there's too much moisture," Katie pointed out. "They'll definitely go off, but if you want an inferno, it helps if things are dry."

"We may have to take what we can get. As much as we may want this plan to go perfectly, waiting too long may make it impossible, and then all the work is a waste."

"We'll do it at the first good opportunity. I'll trust you to make that call."

Golron chuckled. "Good, because this is still my unit, and what I say is still the rule, last I checked."

Katie smiled. "I haven't forgotten. I'm just excited about this plan. I really think it will work."

"As do I. Or I would not have agreed to it." Golron stood. "It is late, as usual. We should sleep. Tomorrow, there will be another meeting so we can update the rest on the status of the plan." He paused. "Will you be all right getting home on your own?"

"I'll be fine," Katie scoffed, trying not to look awkward as she stood up. "The path is lit, and there are handrails everywhere. Unless you think I can't walk at this point."

Golron looked appropriately contrite. "Very well then. Good night."

"Good night." Katie turned back to her computer and turned it off, disconnecting it from the plugs that existed in this room, courtesy of the solar panels above. She never let it out of her sight. She had upgraded the resistance's systems as much as she could with what they had, but her system was hers.

It was also where she kept her personal ongoing journal of their experiences here. Detailed daily accounts, little reminders of things she wished she could tell Hunk, or Caitlin. Images. Recipes Hunk might enjoy, and the details of the various foods she had encountered. When she got home, she wanted to be able to share it all with her family.

She hoped that Hunk was doing the same thing.

November 20th, 2332

It rained again, consistently, for the next five days. As Katie had been warned, it also got colder. Not that she felt it much, given her body had turned into a furnace the past couple of months. In fact, aside from the wet part, it was a nice change of pace not to feel like she might overheat at any moment. Just one more month, she kept telling herself, hoping that at some point she might find those words encouraging. But, much like last time, she was getting very tired of being pregnant.

Once again, her body decided the best recovery from several late nights of work, and the following morning meeting, was a couple of days of eating and sleeping, before it would allow her to remain conscious long enough to string together coherent thoughts. Feeling vaguely human again, she braved the rain for lunch, and then settled back in her room for a quiet afternoon. She wanted to work on catching up her catalog of everything. Katie didn't want to call it a diary, because it wasn't quite. It was more of a record of events framed as letters.

November 20th, 2332 Earth standard calendar. By the local reckoning, it is the ninth day of the month of Ardvek, in the year 6603. Dear Hunk and Caitlin, it's raining yet again today. They weren't kidding about the season being wet, and cold, but at least I have a nice dry place to spend it. No mission again today, so it's just me and the baby. I caught sight of Coran again briefly last night. I think he's noticed the drone, but if so, no one else has. I've heard nothing on the communications chatter from the Yoan about it. Soon, I hope, I will be able to get the notes delivered to Coran and the others that are enslaved to be prepared for the jail break. But enough about that, how are you two? Are you getting ready for Thanksgiving? I'm going to miss spending the holidays with you this year, though I don't think I'll need any turkey. I've run out of fruit metaphors and I think this kid is at least a full thanksgiving turkey at this point. A little over four weeks to go, and I finally have a few things to take care of a baby. It's not much. Fortunately, the Chicid use diapers on their pups. Iffina was happy to make me a few that didn't have tail holes. I think she found it interesting, since every other species on this planet seems to have a tail. Only those of us who came from outside the system are tailless. Given the weather, the few baby clothes I have are more like incredibly long t-shirts, which makes them look more like those old Victorian baby nightgowns in historical artwork and novels. With that and cloth diapers I'm feeling like I've suddenly gone all nature-mom. One of the Vasren gave me a cloth baby-sling she used to use to carry one of her children. It's pretty much exactly like the ones you'd find on Earth, just in a different pattern.

I stopped by Assta and Ssisp's briefly this afternoon. Their babies are doing really well. They've finally identified genders and assigned names to all twenty-seven of them. It turns out eighteen of them are girls, and so seven of the remaining nine are boys, and two appear to be neuters—or that's how the word translates anyway— which Assta says is normal. There's usually one or two in any family. They're actually considered to be special because it means they can focus on the good of the society and not be distracted by the needs of children. Or something like that. I don't know enough to make a judgement call, but it doesn't seem to be an issue for them. I'm not even going to try and remember all twenty-seven names right now. I'm fortunate I can even remember mine some days. But at some point, I'll write them down so I can learn them and I'll tell you.

Katie paused. That was about all she could think of for the moment. She saved the file and then set it aside to finish later, hoping her focus would come back a bit more eventually. She was tired of feeling exhausted and sapped of her mental faculties. Got to keep it together until Coran's safe. Then…I can just spend the next couple of weeks as a lump… just, have to save him.

Surely, she could do that much, couldn't she?

November 27th, 2332

Coran lay on the floor in his usual corner of his cell, trying to ignore the pain. The Yoan were not inventive torturers, but they were enthusiastic. While Coran could only presume, they had gotten nothing of use out of the other members of his team, as they were still questioning him, he also seemed to be the only one still being treated that way. Perhaps it was because he was so obviously an off-worlder. They had asked him questions about how he came here. Why he was working with the resistance. Eventually it always circled back around to their location. Coran gave them nothing.

He was beginning to wonder, however, just how long he could go on like this, before they got bored of him. He did not think they would just leave him to work. It was much more likely they would just kill him… enthusiastically.

One of his eyes was now swollen completely shut, so for several moments, he was certain he was delirious, or seeing something wrong, until a small drone appeared in front of his face, nearly silent and small enough it had slipped in through the expedience of the space between the top bar and the rock above, where there was about a six-inch gap, twenty feet above their heads.

It extended a small arm, holding out what looked like a leaf, and a tiny piece of metal.

Coran reached out and took both. The drone waited, so Coran looked them over, immediately noticing a message on the leaf. It was written in Altean. Pidge.

It's a skeleton key. Use it on everyone's chains you can. Be ready to cause as big a riot as possible. Don't expect breakfast. This message is edible.

Of course! It was brilliant. Coran looked into the small camera—he was sure it was a camera—on the front of the drone and mouthed "Thank you, Pidge. I'll be ready." Then he put the leaf to his mouth and ate it.

The drone sat there a second longer, and then rose back up into the air, and slipped out. He saw it go into the cell on the other side, and land next to one of Golron's men there. So, it was to be a prison break. A mass riot, and probably very early in the morning. More importantly, he hadn't been hallucinating the other evening when he thought he saw something zip into the shadows. Obviously, Katie had something deviously genius in mind.

He just hoped it worked, and got to work on his own cuffs. Once he got them unlocked, he would start on everyone else.