Page 71 of Taken to Kor
“Kits are coming!”
Rhork, at my side, starts to stagger to the side and might have fallen had Nikkowerranorru not been at his side and caught him. Rhork blinks many, many times. So many times I start to laugh. Panic-laugh, but laugh all the same. Kits rhymes with wits. Because mine seem to be scattered. Lost to the chaos of Kor that exists wherever pirates are, no matter the planet.
“I’m going to be a father?” He asks Quintenanrret, but the healer just grimaces.
“Not if we can’t get Deena to a medical facility — and fast. We don’t know what birthing looks like for a human female and I don’t have any of my equipment here.”
As he starts speaking, a pain — well, more like a discomfort — squeezes my stomach where my ovaries usually live. Or maybe lower. I can’t really tell. But I start to feel immediately dizzy. “Is dizziness part of it?”
“Shrov! Centare, it isn’t. Rhork, she’s early. I don’t know if this is normal for a human giving birth to Niahhorru babies or not. We need a facility…”
“I need to sit down.”
“We’re far from Deena’s beach planet,” Corvenarennu says.
Rhork shouts back as several hands lower me gently into a seat. Hands keep trying to offer me things and someone has the audacity to offer me black fil. I grab it and launch it across the room as hard as I can. “No fil! I will smash your face if you try to give me any of this again, then I’ll give birth to these aliens inside of me and they’ll smash your face, too!”
“Idiot,” somebody says and laughter crops up somewhere in the crowd, arguing too, of course.
The discomfort subsides, but the dizziness doesn’t. I hold my head in my two meager hands and close my eyes. “Nikkowerranorru?”
“Ontte, Deena, I’m here.”
“Is Svera still there?”
“Centare, but I can get her back quickly.”
I nod. “Maybe do that. Rhork?”
“You want to land,” he says, dropping to his knees at my feet and placing his palms on my calves and belly.
“Ontte. I think there’s a birthing facility on the human colony.”
Silence. Then a moment later, Svera’s voice cuts in. “Oh! You’re back. We thought we lost you forever. Oh. Stars! Deena, are you alright?”
“I’m dizzy…”
“She’s gone into labor,” Quintenanrret answers on my behalf. “We need to make use of your medical facilities to help her deliver…”
“This feels like a trap…” Krisxox says again while Rhork damn near loses his mind at my side.
Svera, luckily, has the force of presence to say, “Krisxox, shush. Grant them permission to land. You’ll need an escort. Our fighters are still trying to round up the last of the Egama.”
“Round them up?” I wheeze as another dizzy spell washes over me. “Why aren’t you just shooting them out of the sky?”
“Because we’ll give them trials.”
“And then send them to Kor?”
Her jaw works at that and she has decency enough to blush. “Alright, we’ll figure out what to do with them when you land. An escort is on its way. Can you wait another quarter solar for us to get to you…”
Rhork cuts her off with a condescending scoff, “We don’t need an escort to reach your planet. We’ll use our machine and be there in less than a blink. Just make sure the space directly south of your medical facility is clear because we’re incoming in the next five…four…three…two…”
17
Rhork
We exit the mothership — all eighty of us — and storm towards the medical facility with blundering force. The Voraxian and human soldiers awaiting our arrival are quickly overwhelmed, which is fine. We aren’t here to fight. We’re here to celebrate and bring little hybrid kits into the world. Deena leads the charge — in my arms — and Svera rushes out to meet us even though her mate attempts to block her at every turn.
