Kurt sat in an observation room, looking between various monitors. Each one offered a look into the various rooms that the captives were being kept in. Elia Martell sat on her bed, her two children sleeping on the soft mattress as she began to disrobe and put on the standard issue sleepwear that was provided. Kurt had no intention of spying on the woman as she changed, even if it was someone else's job to do just that in case she possessed some hidden weapon or other item. In the other rooms most of the others were either doing as the princess was, or where exploring the modern technology that was available to them. Rickard Stark and Ethan Glover seemed very taken with the sink, chugging clean water from cups, and even placing their mouths under the faucet and drinking.
Lyanna Stark also seemed curious, though she was fiddling with the switch of the lamp on her bedside rather that experimenting with the clean water that she was now being afforded. In their own rooms, Ashara Dayne sat on her bed, cradling her belly and in an instant, Kurt noticed a darkening of the bottom of her dress. Her dress began to change to a deeper shade of purple, a deepness of colour that Kurt recognised. Her clothes were wet.
"Oh for fuck's sake." He said, tapping a communication device in his ear.
"Autumn, wake up one of the doctors, preferably one who knows how to deliver a baby. I want a gurney here stat, and get Elia Martell or Rhaella out of their rooms. We might need one of them for some moral support."
"On it." Autumn's voice spoke through the ear piece. "I've already got Dr. Andreas up. She'll be in the infirmary two levels down."
"Good. Have Jane intercept and explain the sanitary protocols to Elia and Rhaella, we should keep their contact with us consistent."
"Yes sir."
Elia sat in her room, smaller than the one she was used to staying in in the Red Keep, but then again she was a prisoner here, so a downward change in accomodations was to be expected. At least they had not taken Aegon or Rhaenys from her. They had not even tried. She suspected that it was some way to make her think they cared for her comfort or her children's.
She had already changed her clothes, discarding her formal dress and putting on the sleep clothes that had been given to her. They were unlike anything she had worn since she had reached adulthood, appearing more like the clothes of a man. It was no nightgown, instead, a pair of breeches and a large night shirt had been given to her. She was unsure of why they might give her such things, did all their women also wear such things to sleep. Briefly her mind snapped over to Lady Jane. The woman who had competed in and won the archery in the largest tourney in Westeros. The woman who had gained a reputation of defeating men and kingsguard in the sparring ring. Suddenly, the idea that all the women of House Terra wore such masculine clothing did not seem so outlandish.
Elia had all but finished her preparations for what sleep she might be able to get for the night when the door of her room slid open. As she had 'turned off' the 'lights' as they were called, she was momentarily blinded by the light from behind the door.
"Lady Elia."
Immediately Elia made to place herself between this new person and her children, for as little as her protection was worth in the face of whoever Lord Kurt and Lord Tywin might have sent to kill her.
"Please get up, it appears that Lady Ashara has gone into labour."
As soon as the words were out of the person's mouth, two things crossed Elia's mind, the first was that the woman was Lady Jane, and the other was that her friend was giving birth. Ashara was bringing her child into the world.
"I have to go." She said, standing up. "I need to help her."
"That is why I'm here." Lady Jane said. "Rhaella has agreed to look after your children while you help Lady Dayne."
Stepping to the side, Elia sat Rhaella standing behind the spartan woman with Viserys in her arms. The Dornish princess rushed forwards, taking Rhaella into her arms and giving the woman a brief but meaningful embrace.
"Thank you." She whispered as Rhaella smiled and patted her cheek.
"Think nothing of it, my love." She said. "Go help your friend, I will stay and watch over the children."
Elia nodded and smiled before turning back to Jane.
"Take me to her."
Jane nodded, leading Elia down the hallways to the strange slow falling room. Agains Elia felt the strange sensation in her stomach, but it was far shorter than the last time, and they exited the room in a different place. The first time they had gone through this room, Elia had wondered if it was similar to winch elevator that the Night's Watch used. It seemed similar to what she had read about the device the men of the north used to scale their massive wall. The first time though, there was little evidence that they had even moved, the walls had stayed the same, a dull grey that Elia only recognised from the sight of armour and weapons. Metal walls.
This time however, the walls were not the dull grey she had seen before. White walls, free of blemish or dirt, stretched on and Elia could see several people wearing strange light blue gowns rushing to and fro. They had strange masks on their faces and gloves on their hands, but Elia paid them little attention as she heard a scream echoing from one of the rooms. She rushed forwards. As she approached the room, the strangely dressed men and women stopped her.
"Let me through." She said, trying to push past.
"In a moment miss." One of them said. "Put this on."
She was handed a bundle, which she recognised as one of the gowns that the others were wearing.
"Put it on over your clothes." One of the women said, helping her to get it on before tucking her hair into som kind of strange cloth headdress. "This way."
Elia was led into a room, where se saw Ashara lying on a bed, her legs propped up in a gown similar to her own, as a woman stationed at the foot of the bed with another woman to her side.
"Elia." Ashara gasped, sweat covering her forhead and causing her long hair to stick to her skin.
"Ashara." Elia said, moving to her side and sitting on a chair that was positioned just next to her friend's birthing bed.
Elia took her friend's hand, holding it in her own as others swarmed around them, waiting for the time when the babe decided it wanted to enter the world.
Hours had passed since the beginning of Ashara's labour, and Kurt had yet to receive word on her progress. The last one had been three hours ago, roughly nine hours since the start of Lady Dayne's labour. As it was, the impending birth of her child in UNSC territory, more than that, within a UNSC ship, brought up a troubling problem that he now had to discuss with the rest of the crew.
"Ashara Dayne will soon have her child." He reported to the assembled higher-ups of the Plataea's command structure.
"And?" asked Tobias, sitting with a cup of coffee in his hand.
"UEG and UNSC law stipulates that children of other nationalities born in UEG territory are considered Jus Soli citizens." Kurt said. "When the UEG was set up, there were still several holdout nations on Earth and across the Sol system. UEG laws integrated from member countries were decided based on ensuring that anyone who wanted to could become a memeber, even if they were born to nations and colonies not part of the original UEG. The USA and other countries like it's laws on birthright citizenship were carried over and are still technically active and apply to all UEG and UNSC territory, including this ship."
"The UEG hasn't had to deal with non-member nations since the joining of Europa back in 2204." Lian said, leaning forwards. "Even during the insurrection, none of the colonies broke off enough for them to begin establishing new nations and designating newly born citizens as distinct from the UEG."
"Exactly. Which is why this is an almost unprecedented occurance." Kurt said.
He tapped on a small tablet on the desk, which lit up a screen on the other side of the conference room. The screen showed various pieces of legal documents, pieces of the UEG laws on citizenship and the rights that that citizenship entailed.
"What we have now is a question of whether or not a child born to a prisoner of a foreign power, brought onto our ship as a captive, is entitled to the rights of UEG citizenship. As captain, and the highest ranking member of both the UNSC and the UEG, I have the power to make a unilateral decision on this, but I believe that we as a crew, should make this decision together."
"I vote we allow it." Jordan Rodriguez said. "Think of the message we could send to the natives here. Our entire crew here counts as members of a noble house, and the idea that anyone born as a part of our society could gain that prestige would draw in thousands of people."
"But the right people?" Tobias countered. "We've already sworn to protect these people, at least without completely upending their local society, but if we just hand UEG citizenship out to anyone born in our territory, we would have to recognise them as legitimate members of our society. When we leave, we could end up taking thousands more people with us, and even if we stay, if we go through with settlement and colonisation plans, any natives born with citizenship would have votes in any system we set up. Are we comfortable allowing natives, without allegience to Earth or her colonies, to be the ones directing our actions in the future?"
"We would only be granting citizenship to newborn children." Lian countered. "We'd have the chance to teach them, to show them a better way of life than being feudal peasants."
"And what about the parents of those children?" Tobais retorted. "Do we just tell them 'bad luck'? Are we going to institute a naturalization process? If we do this, we could see our population overtaken by locals within a generation. Even if we manage to educate them all, it would tie up irrevocably in with the locals and their power structure."
"We aren't going home any time soon." Diya pointed out. "It's likely that we'll have time to build additional ships by the time we figure this out, or at least reconfigure the Plataea with more cryo-tubes."
"And how many people would that carry?" Tobias asked. "The whole damn island? How about the whole country? And if we do leave how many of them would follow? Would we empty the whole planet and bring them back to the UEG? If we do leave, how much is our citizenship going to be worth to the ones that stay?"
"Allowing the natives to become citizens does seem like an admittance that we'll be here for a while." Leonard said.
"And so what?" Asked Maria. "If we do end up staying, then we might need to settle down, we'll need to let our men and women have lives, let them get married and have kids. If any of them end up hitching themselves to any of the natives we'll need an answer to the question of citizenship. Better we figure it out now and have an answer to give them when the time comes."
"We've already settled the matter though, haven't we?" Asked Joseph. The spartan representitive had remained silent, as he did during most meetings. The spartan branch of the UNSC rarely engaged in ship wide policies, most often taking the sides of either the captain, or CPO Mendez.
"We took in natives, we've restarted the Spartan-III program." He said. "CPO Mendez and I have already started putting the recruits through basic training. Those children are going to be Spartans, and because of that they will be UNSC soldiers and UEG citizens. This point of birthright citizenship is that anyone born in our control gets a say in how we run things. We've taken these natives in, given then a chance at rebirth as spartans. They're already in our systems. This new child is the same, the only difference is that we didn't explicitly bring them here."
Joseph raised his hand into the air.
"All in favour?"
Maria, Diya, Jordan and Lian's hands joined Joseph's in the air.
"Very well." Kurt said. "Now all opposed."
Tobias' hand rose quickly, but was joined by Jennifer, Mendez, Leonard and Lorena's hands.
The vote was split between the two sides, with five on each side.
"Sir." Mendez nodded. "Look's like you're the tie breaker."
Kurt nodded solemnly. He looked out over the faces of his command staff. This was going to be a difficult choice, and no matter what choice he made there would be consequences to whichever side he gave his vote to. Tobias had made more than a few convincing points, and Leonard was right that discussing citizenship was an admition that they would be here for a while. On the other, Joseph made his own points, and he was right. The various children brought in from around Westeros were UNSC soldiers, and by extention, UEG citizens. This new child that Ashara Dayne brought into the world would be just as entitled to that citizenship as Delta company.
"I vote in favour of granting citizenship."
Smiles appeared on the faces of several of his staff, and Kurt thought he saw even Joseph's face twitch into a slight grin. Tobias scowled, but as for the rest they seemed rather unconcerned with the outcome of the vote.
"Right then." Jennifer said, her face stoic. "I suppose the only thing to do now is get back to work, and wait for Ms. Dayne to delive her child."
"Well you won't have to wait long." Autumn said, appearing on top of the table. "She's just entered the final stages of her labour. We'll be introduced to a bouncing new baby member of the UEG. Also, why wasn't I given a vote. I do more here than all of you combined."
Kurt shook his head slightly at Autumn's antics but rose from the table.
"Well then, the matter is closed. I thank you for your points and advice in this matter, and it seems I have some news to deliver to a soon to be new mother."
Dismissed, the assembled crew filed out of the room.
"Jennifer." He stopped his XO, who looked back at him. "Stop by my office later, we need to discuss about further deployments and new intel from our away teams."
His second in command nodded at him.
"Yes sir." she said before she left.
Kurt himself followed his subordinates out of the room, making his way down to the infirmary where Ashara Dayne was giving birth.
"Oh sir." He heard Autumn's voice in his ear. "By the way Jaime Lannister's recovering well from his concusion. Will you be seeing him soon."
"After this Autumn, one thing at a time."
"Yes sir, and just so you know sir. I would have voted with you."
"I appreciate it Autumn. How are the recruits by the way?"
"Psych evaluations are completed. We've got a good batch this time. There's one of them in particular who seems to be rising up quickly in the ranks, she's already got more than a few of them under her command."
"Which one?"
"One of the recruits from King's Landing. Candidate D-001."
Ashara Dayne screamed as she was told to push. She had spent nearly half a day waiting for her child to enter the world, and even then she had not gotten to sleep after being kidnapped in the night by the spartans of House Terra. She was exhausted, she was scared, she was in pain. Every part of her begged to be allowed to rest, but she could not. Her baby was coming, and both Elia and the female maester helping her were telling her that soon it would be over.
"Alright now. miss, you're crowning, on the next contraction I need you to push. Ready?"
Ashara nodded, throwing her head back and taking deep breaths. Elia wiped a cloth over her forehead, soaking up the sweat on her brow. She waited for the next clenching of her muscles, waited to push and bring her child into the world.
"Alright, push now."
She pain came, Ashara did as instructed, pushing with all her might. Pain filled her world, everything was blurry and distant. Only the pain and the feel of air flowing into her breast were clear.
And then they were joined by a new noise.
The cry of an infant.
Ashara felt the pain ebb away, but barely heard the maester's assistants as they swarmed her lower half. Instead, all her focus, all her attention centered on a small bundle in the arms of the female maester. She had risen from her seat, with a small pink mass in her arms. She rocked it gently but the baby continued to cry. Ashara could distantly hear Elia next to her, praising her and speaking quickly about the baby, but Ashara didn't care. The only thing in the world that mattered was the child that was being brought to her.
"A healthy baby boy miss." The woman said, handing over her child, her son.
Ashara's eyes filled with tears as her son was placed in her arms, on her chest. she wrapped her arms around her child, uncaring as a small blanket was placed over him.
"Hello little one." She whispered, running her finger over her son's face as he held her tightly.
She gathered him quickly in her arms, bringing him to her breast and offering him one of her teats. Her son quickly began to feed, suckling softly at her as she watched.
Time seemed to pass by slowly, and before long she was shaken out of her reprive as the maester and her assistants reached for her son.
"Sorry miss, we just have to check that your son is healthy and get him washed an measured."
Ashara nodded her head, she knew that maesters took the babes soon after birth to check their health, and to wash them of the afterbirth. Her son was lifted from her arms, taken from her breast, and soon started to cry anew, if softly. She felt her heart lurch at the sound, and consoled herself with the knowledge that so far, one one had even made a move to seperate her from her newborn babe. As the healers took her child the maester turned to the door that Elia had come through.
"You can speak with her now, but keep it short, she needs her rest."
"Of course, thank you doctor."
Ashara turned her head to see Lord Kurt Ambrose of House Terra, standing in the doorway in a blue gown and strange white gloves.
"Lady Dayne, first may I congratulate you on a healthy baby boy."
The lord of the Plataea stepped into the room and Ashara suddenly felt unsafe. After all, it had been only hours before that this man had ordered and participated in the murder of the king and the crown prince, and then abducted her and the rest of the royal family from the Red Keep.
"Thank you My Lord." She said, trying to keep the exhaustion out of her voice.
"I'll make this quick My Lady, I know that you must be tired" He said, offering her a small, kind smile.
Ashara didn't believe it for a moment, this man was cold and calculating, akin to Lord Tywin and his ilk.
"Your son has been born here, in our territory, and that has a certain meaning." The Lord of Fair Isle took a deep breath. "According to our laws, anyone born in our territory is permitted membership and citizenship of the UEG. My lady, it is my duty as Captain of the Plataea, ranking member of the United Earth Government, and Lord of this territory, to inform you that your son is, regardless of any other allegiences, a member of the House of Terra and the UEG."
So it's been a while, and I wanted to get this out on Wednesday but couldn't. Honestly everyone the last two weeks have been crazy. I moved back to my appartment, only to find that my roommates had moved out, stolen some of my stuff and taken the internet. I'm currently publishing this with just the hotspot and mobile data on my phone so it's crazy. Additionally, I've been swamped with final exams and papers for this year of University. I still have a few due so updates in June will be sparce. Once July comes around we will hopefully be back to normal and I can get chapters out once a week as planned.
So honestly this chapter was meant to be about the reaction to Scenario Omicron in KL, but then I started writing Ashara's birth and we got this chapter. Now we have a Stark/Dayne who is also a member of the UNSC. I had some fun with the internal politics discussing this and am wondering how you guys liked it.
The idea of Jus Soli being a part of the UEG and UNSC was something I came up with myself, as there's little about how citizenship is granted given how the whole of humanity is under the UNSC by the time of the games. Still, given its history I had to make something and I decided I would talk about it here.