Page 75 of Volunteer 4711

I wake up in sickbay. I hear babies crying. My babies. “Doctor?”

The doctor and my husband come to my bedside. Between them, they are carrying three babies. “Where are the others?” I ask.

“I am doing what we can,” the doctor says.

I nod, and tears begin to fall down my cheeks when I look at the babies we do have, “These three are healthy?”

“Yes,” the doctor confirms. “Two girls and a boy. All healthy. Future princes and princesses.”

I take the babies and inspect them in my arms, then what the doctor just said infiltrates my mind, “Did you say, princes and princesses? What do you mean?” I assume it’s what they might call all new babies on the Home Planet as a term of endearment.

However, the doctor looks from me to my husband and then says, “I think this I something that you should discuss with the Commander.”

I look at my husband expectantly because I know something is wrong.

“He said that because these children still have a right to the throne of the Home Planet.”

“But the Home Planet is a republic.”

“Yes, for the last twenty years,” he says.

And then everything makes sense. My world starts spinning, and my last words before I pass out are, “Take the children I can’t.”

* * *

“Wife,” I hear my husband say. “Wife.”

I open my eyes and see his blue ones looking down into mine.

“You did so well. They all have your brown eyes. And if we are lucky, they will grow up to be as strong as you.”

I bask in his praise for a minute but then remember. “You lied to me.”

“The Republic took my title. I never lied to you.”

“But you never thought to mention it to me, which is almost the same as lying.”

“You married me thinking I was a pirate. And that is what I am and what I will always be.”

“But you purposely kept me from finding out about your past. Is this the only reason why you wouldn’t let me use a computer, except to send messages and for the cultural and language programs? Why would you do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because I was ashamed. I did not want you to think I was a male who could not keep what was mine or that I could not keep my family safe,” he tells me more emotionally than I have ever seen him. “My family was executed while I was serving with the Royal Fleet, and I could not protect them. By the time I returned, their bodies were still on display in the capital city’s main square, and I had to bribe people to cut them down and bury them. I have so much shame and did not want you to know. I never wanted you to see those images of me. You never looked at me with pity. And since I married you, fewer people have looked at me with pity, so I never wanted you to know.”

I realize that I was so selfish, thinking that this was about me and his keeping something from me when it actually was about him. “I am so sorry. That doesn’t make you weak,” I say.

I open my arms, and he comes to me. We embrace. Then he whispers, “Let’s start over now.”

“Husband, I almost died giving birth, but we have some healthy children.”

“I am so proud of you. There’s something I would like to tell you; I used to be heir to the throne when the Home Planet was still a monarchy. But now I am a pirate. However, by the law, our children still hold their titles.”

“Are they in danger?”

“No,” he says. “Because their mother is a Water woman, no one would support them for a coup.”

“So you married me for your own reasons as well?”

“I needed freedom as much as you did,” he admits.

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