by Mikayla Lane
“He’s right. We need to wake them up first. And we need to be able to prove unconditionally to the council that they are mates. And I won’t go behind their backs again. They could have died from our actions before, and I have no idea how they are not in poor health from lack of sustenance. We need to know more. And the commander has a right to know he’s going to be a father, before the council.” Amun added, knowing that withholding this information from the council will probably get him in more trouble, and not caring.
Gracus was extremely pleased when the crew began nodding and exclaiming their agreement to the decision. As the current commander of the ship, he needed to make it easier on all of them. Knowing the ship wide comms were on so those at their duty stations would know every happening with their commander and his mate, he absolved the crew of any guilt they may have at deceiving the council.
“I hereby order everyone on this ship to withhold any information currently known and anything that will eventually be found out about the commander and his mate, from the council.”
The chorus of “Yes, Sir” was spoken with enthusiasm throughout the ship.
Chapter Thirteen
“I have no explanation as to why. All I know is that the tests confirm that somehow the brain waves of the four of them are in-sync. They are completely connected together. The most unexplained part is how the babies’ brains are showing a strength we’ve never seen before, and they seem to be the ones keeping Cari and Scaden locked into this self-induced comatose state.” Amun explained to Gracus and Randor. His frustration at not knowing or understanding what was going on with them evident in his expression.
“I don’t understand this. Are you saying that the little ones are controlling their parents?” Randor asked in confusion.
“Essentially… yes.”
“How is that possible?” Gracus just didn’t know what to think anymore. And with the first ships arriving in only a few days, they had to figure out something and fast.
“That we don’t know either. Trust me; we are working around the clock trying to figure this out. I’ve discovered a way possibly to wake them up, but I’m afraid of the impact it might have on the babies and don’t really want to take a chance of harming them.”
Amun knew they agreed when they began shaking their heads emphatically.
“There is a way that we might be able to wake Scaden without impacting the little ones. They are connected more strongly with Cari; we believe because she is the one carrying them, and we assume her gift is allowing her a greater ease to this bond. Even so, there is still a risk, although very minimal.”
“Once we are able to wake him, we are hoping he can wake Cari. But again, we don’t know for sure. Everything about this, everything we have seen so far, is beyond anything we could have ever prepared for. Our only other option is to wait for the Med-Ship to arrive. Maybe they can come up with something we can’t.”
“No, we can’t wait for the Med-Ship. We have no idea what the council will do since they still don’t have the Ator-Ma. For all we know, none of our children will ever receive it. If the council is going to remain adamant about that being the only way to determine if they are really mates, then we are going to have to go with our original plans. I won’t allow them to take my daughter’s mate from her.”
It was the only decision Randor could agree to in order to ensure Cari’s happiness. And to guarantee that his great-children would grow up with their father. It broke his heart to think that he may never see her again, or see his great-children, but he knew in his heart it was the right decision. The only comfort he had was knowing that they would be safe.
“Are you sure?” Gracus had to know that Randor wasn’t going to change his mind.
“Yes, I’m sure. Amun, how long will it take to wake him up?”
“It should be rather quickly if our calculations are correct.” Amun walked over to the body of his prone friend and began initiating the protocol that he thought would wake him.
*****
Scaden dove quickly under the water, and grabbing hold of Cari’s feet; he pulled her under with him. They both came up for air laughing and sputtering. Cari giggled as she grabbed hold of Scaden’s shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist so that he could hold her up in the water. Luckily, he was tall enough for his feet to touch, but she wasn’t.
Scaden smiled broadly as he held her tightly in his arms and walked through the water until they were closer to shore. When he reached a point where he could comfortably relax, he sat down and allowed the water to lap gently around his waist where Cari’s legs were.
“What do you want to do today, Amalaya?”
“Hmmmm … I haven’t really thought about it actually. I figured we’d just stay here a little longer.” Cari mumbled contentedly against his shoulder where she had rested her head.
Scaden chuckled at the sound of her sleepy voice. He’d woken her up to a couple of times throughout the night to make love to her. After a few days, their routine began including naps to catch up on the sleep they were losing at night, but they usually took them a few hours from now.
He frowned, thinking that she has seemed much more tired lately and wondered if he wasn’t allowing her to get enough sleep.
“Are you tired, Amalaya?” He stood up and carried her to shore, already making up his mind that they would take their nap early today.
“A little. But I’m fine.” She tried to get out of his arms to walk on her own, but he wouldn’t let her and carried her into the house. She loved that he made her feel so small and protected. On Earth, she was used to towering over most men, that being around him made her feel feminine.
Scaden placed her on her feet in the bathroom and gently dried her skin, getting as much moisture out of her hair as he could. Leading her onto the bed, he sat behind her and slowly brushed her hair, until she was swaying with from drowsiness.
Placing the brush on the table, he lay down and gathered her into his arms. She laid put her head in the crook of his shoulder, threw her leg over his waist and promptly fell right to sleep.
Scaden absently stroked her shoulder as she slept soundly, his mind swirling with thoughts he dared not think of when she was awake.
He still couldn’t think of a way to save them, or himself, so they could remain with each other. He knew the council would never allow them to stay together unless they received the Ator-Ma, and nothing would change their mind. To them, what he had done was the worst kind of criminal activity short of murder.
He wasn’t prepared for the sharp, blinding pain to his skull that paralyzed him, o for what happened next.
*****
Voices… he could hear them but not understand them. What was happening? Where was Cari? Had they been found? The pain in his skull began to subside slowly.
Opening his eyes, he looked directly at Amun, who was leaning over him.
“What? …” He began, having a hard time forming words.
“Scaden, just nod or shake your head to my questions, ok?” Amun’s voice seemed to be coming from a tunnel as his mind struggled to clear itself. He felt almost caught between Amun at one end of the tunnel in his mind, and his desire to be back with Cari at the other end.
“Scaden, can you hear me clearly?” He nodded his head; the move making his head hurt a little.
“Scaden, we really need for you to get up. Try to concentrate on my voice and what I’m saying to you. We need to bring you fully out of this. Can you concentrate on me?” Scaden struggled to understand why he was asking such a stupid question. What did he think was wrong with him to ask such a thing? He nodded his head; this time there was no pain.
“He’s showing signs of fighting the connection; we need to try harder in order to completely break him free of it. We can’t shock him again.” Who was Amun talking to? Scaden tried harder to clear his head. What the hell was happening?
“Commander, you need to get the hell up now! Your mate is in danger, and you need to get the hell up
and help her now! Cari needs you!” Gracus’ sharp commands and mention of Cari helped clear more of the fog from his mind.
“Cari?” He turned towards Gracus, and saw just beyond his friend, Cari laying on a med-bed, next to him. Seeing her laying there brought him awake with a jolt.
“Cari! What’s wrong with her? What happened?” He demanded, his voice becoming stronger by the second. Fear for Cari, driving the fog from his mind completely. He tried to sit up, but felt a little weak yet.
“Let me help you Scaden.” He turned at the sound of Randor’s voice and allowed the man to help him sit up, facing Cari’s bed.
“What is going on? Is she ok?” His eyes traveled the length of her body looking for injuries; her stomach was very swollen! His strength began returning quickly, and he stood up, Gracus catching him as he wobbled slightly.
Walking to her, his hand rested on her swollen stomach. He drew his hand back quickly, stunned by the almost electric shock and thump he felt against his hand.
“What the hell happened to her?” He demanded angrily, wondering why they hadn’t cured whatever was wrong with her. He barely heard what sounded like little alarm bells going off in the room, not quite sure if he was imagining them.
“Scaden, I need you to calm down. I think you’re scaring them, or they think you’re rejecting them because you moved your hand away so quickly.” Scaden tried to comprehend what Amun was saying. Who were they?
“Who the hell are they? What are you talking about?” He was more confused than ever. Looking around the room he couldn’t figure out who the ‘they’ was what he was scaring or rejecting. It was just Amun, Gracus, Randor and a few med-techs that were looking at him … really strangely.
“Scaden, sit down, and try to calm down and let Amun explain things to you ok?” Gracus sat him back down on the bed, the quiet way he spoke to him worried Scaden greatly. Gracus never cut him slack… ever. Something was very wrong.
“Scaden, you and Cari have been in a comatose state for weeks now. When we cut through the wall to remove you both to MedLab, we found out that Cari was pregnant. The ‘they’ we were referring to, are your two daughters whom she is carrying. It was them you were feeling when you touched her stomach. Here, I’ll show you.” Amun ran a scanner over Cari’s swollen stomach and projected a hologram. Scaden was grateful they had made him sit down as he watched, stunned, as Amun showed him what looked like two blobs moving slightly in Cari’s abdomen.
He was having a really hard time comprehending what Amun was telling him. He kept looking from the hologram to Cari’s abdomen as if trying to get it to sink into his mind.
“How long have we been in this comatose state?” It had to have been many months to have made her stomach swell that big.
“You’ve been confined to your quarters for a little over three weeks. Cari had locked herself into her own, the same time you were locked in.” Gracus informed him.
This wasn’t possible. He had seen pictures of pregnant women on his planet and knew they did not look like that at only three weeks. The child couldn’t be his if she looked like that. Anger at the thought that she may have betrayed him made his jump to his feet. He didn’t expect the sharp pain to his head as he stepped toward Cari.
“Oh hell Scaden! I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not like that! And if you don’t calm down your daughters are going to kick your ass! You have no concept of what they are capable of at this point.”
“We have to get him out of here, while we explain this to him, or he’s going to upset them even more than he already has.” Scaden vaguely heard Amun talking to someone else and realized he was being led out of the MedLab.
The further they walked down the corridor, the more the pain diminished and his head began to clear. By the time they reached a conference room, several levels below, and at the opposite end of the ship from MedLab, he was feeling almost himself. And it didn’t escape his notice that every comm, in every corridor and room that they passed, was showing Cari, the hologram and the now empty bed where he had been.
Once they had all sat down at the table, Amun, Randor and Gracus began to fill him in on what had happened during the three weeks he had been 'out'.
When they were finished, he sat in stunned silence and stared at the image of Cari, and his daughters on the comm in the room. He was a father, of not just one daughter, but two. Amun explained to him that the reason her stomach looked so big was because their women only carried the baby until five months before they were ready to be born. And since she was carrying two babies, Cari was going to be much larger a lot faster than a normal pregnancy.
He was a father. He couldn’t seem to get that out of his mind. And they had more than their mother’s gift, and had struck out at him because they thought he didn’t want them. He had to get back to MedLab. He had to make sure they knew he loved and wanted them! He had to see Cari and wake her! He got up quickly, and began running through the ship to get back to his family, to his mate.
He could hear the others running behind him and didn’t care. His thoughts only on getting to his mate and child… children, he had to correct himself. There had never been twins born on his planet. Amun had to explain to him what they were. How was it possible to have two exact looking children? Amun and Randor explained it happened on Earth often, but how had it happened to him and Cari? How would he tell them apart if they looked alike?
He slowed his pace as he ran through the door to MedLab and stopped next to Cari, looking down at her stomach in amazement and trepidation. He had to protect his family. Would the council realize they were mates now? Amun had explained to him how powerful his daughters were; his daughters… every time he thought of that the emotions nearly brought him to his knees.
He and Cari created not only one miracle, but two. He couldn’t be happier. One way or another, he would protect his family, and he would keep them together. His resolve strengthened; he reached out his hand and placed it tenderly over where his children rested inside of their mother, his mate.
His happiness and pride washed over him until he felt giddy with it. The warmth he felt emanating from where his hand rested proved to him that Amun had been right. His little ones were very powerful to not even be born and have the ability to share their emotions.
If what Amun had told him was true, it was their daughters who had taken them away from the ship, in their minds, somehow in order to give them the one thing they wanted… to be together. He gently caressed Cari’s belly, and spoke softly to his daughters, making sure they knew how much he loved them. That he would do anything to make their mother and them happy and to keep them together and safe.
Everyone in the room stood in amazed silence as the intense emotions of the children and Scaden encompassed them all. The entire ship was mesmerized by the scene on the comm of their commander and his children. The emotions so strong they could be felt several levels above and below the MedLab.
“She doesn’t know. We need to wake her, so she knows.” Scaden told the room in general. Not caring who answered, as long as someone did something to wake his mate.
“Scaden, we can’t wake her the same way we woke you. We had to forcefully break the connection to you, Cari and the children by sending a strong electrical impulse directly into your brain. We don’t know how that will affect the babies. It could hurt them or kill them…” Scaden didn’t let Amun even finish.
“NO!!! We will do nothing that will harm any of them! Is that clear?”
“Calm down, we agree with you. That’s why we have done nothing to disturb her in any way.” Gracus tried to placate his friend. At Scaden’s outburst, he had seen on the hologram that the babies had become very agitated. Not knowing what they were actually capable of, he didn’t want them upset. None of them thought the children would harm anyone, but he thought it best to not have their father upset.
“Then how do we wake her?”
“We’re not really sure. We were hoping that if you were awake, that you
could convince the babies to wake her up. I know it’s not much, but it’s all we have right now. The other ships will be here in two days, and she has to wake up before they get nearby." Gracus hadn’t yet told Scaden of the plans that they had formulated during the weeks that he had been in a coma with Cari. She had to be awake for it to work.
“I can only guess at what happened, but I think that once the babies were able to realize the connection you and Cari had established after mating, and saw the pain you were both in, that they took it upon themselves to help push the two of you into a coma to protect you. I think when they realize that their mother will be happier awake; now that you are, they will help wake her. Again, it’s only a guess, but it’s all we’ve got right now.”
Amun felt almost foolish even suggesting it. None of his training ever prepared him for a situation like this. Mates with no Ator-Ma, a female with powerful gifts, induced comas by babies not even born. And twins! At times, he wondered if any of them were sane, or if they were all infected by something.
“I’ll wake her… somehow I’ll find a way.” Scaden ran his hand through his hair in frustration, trying to think of a way to make that happen.
*****
Cari awoke slowly. It took a few minutes to realize she was alone in the large bed. Missing Scaden already, she got up and dressed intending to go look for him. She figured he was probably in the kitchen making them something to eat. She was hoping anyway; she was starving. She has been hungry a lot lately.
Wandering through the house, she didn’t find him in the kitchen, or anywhere. Beginning to worry, she walked around outside calling his name. When she didn’t find him, she began to panic. Where was he? Running down to the lake she jogged along the shore, continuing to call his name. He wasn’t there either.
