Thank the fucking stars, and the pilots, the take off had been smooth. We had skidded along the surface of the water faster and faster until somehow that allowed us to angle upwards and ascend. It was even calm aboard, the bridge had been chaotic and horrid but the shuttle seemed better at flying. More… aerodynamic or something. A vehicle designed for transportation rather than an emergency last resort.

  I was strapped into one of the seats, a mask over my mouth and nose providing me extra oxygen. There were only six of us aboard, which oddly meant we had personal space in this small shuttle. The two pilots were in the front mini bridge, whatever it was called. They had been introduced to me as Hewett and Davidson. Two junior officers were also onboard, Zahra and Stoyer. But a curtain had been drawn to bisect the cabin and give me my own little room… kinda.

  We would be far more compressed on the return trip, but in the meantime, it was decently cozy. Or at least as cozy as a space shuttle could be.

  Take off still left me feeling woozy, my head full of bubbles. But I didn’t pass out, I wasn’t shaken violently. I was okay. Except the constant need for the oxygen mask. Nicole was monitoring my vitals every 10 minutes. Without fancy machines that meant just getting poked and prodded. But I didn’t mind it as much from her.

  I sighed, staring out the window and the swirling gray clouds below. Two weeks of this. I had survived months, I could handle two more weeks. We had food, we had water, I had a brilliant doctor trying to keep me alive. But it wasn’t comfortable, then again I was fairly sure dying was never comfortable regardless of where you were.

  The seat was comfy at least. The fabric was better than what I had been sleeping on for the last few days. I leaned my chair back as far as it would go.

  Another cramp rolled through me and I grimaced.

  “We should ration the morphine if we want it to last,” Nicole offered gently. “It’s far from ideal but it’s what we have.”

  I nodded, readjusting the mask on my face. The air was sterile and smelled weird, but I knew better to complain.

  “Do you think you can sleep?” Nicole asked.

  “I don’t know,” I grumbled, adjusting myself in my seat. It was soft and fuzzy, but also couldn’t lean back far enough comfortably. The seatbelt dug into me and the headrest wasn’t tall enough to support my head. If I slouched it could support my head but it pressed directly into my inflamed back. I was quickly realizing the shortcomings of these chairs.

  Nicole brushed the hair from my face. “It’s going to be a very long week if you cannot sleep.”

  I glared at her. I didn’t have the energy for teasing. “Can I have a blanket?” I asked.

  Nicole nodded, “And you should eat something.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I grimaced, as she draped the emergency blanket over me.

  “You need the energy,” Nicole replied. “You’re cold, struggling for nutrients, certainly dehydrated.”

  “I know, but food just makes me feel nauseous.”

  “I cannot administer anything intravenously, which means you need to eat,” Nicole replied firmly. “It may make you feel ill, but absorbing any nutrients is better than starving, especially as the cancer is doing everything it can to leech nutrients for itself.”

  “Fine,” I sighed. She was right, of course. But the premise of trying to handle food was exhausting in itself. “I’ll scarf some down.”

  I managed to sleep on and off. Despite the general discomfort, exhaustion reigned supreme. After one of several naps, we had finally exited N7's atmosphere. Yet it was so large that it hardly seemed to shrink behind us.

  I wanted to take off the annoying mask, but Nicole was still concerned about my oxygen levels. Getting up to pee was an affair every time, yet Nicole didn’t stop making me drink water. The nutrient brick never got any better, but it was so dry it might have actually been impossible to regurgitate. Not that my body didn’t try ad infinitum.

  When I told Nicole that she smiled, I didn’t see how gagging was funny.

  My mood was sour, and I was on the verge of tears. The weirdest part was that there was no indication of the passage of time. The dark void of space was frustratingly bright. The cabin lights could be dimmed, but there were no days in the traditional sense, not even artificial ones like the Euphorion had. We were outside of such systems. The only marker of time was our coordinates and the coordinates of the Euphorion.

  I should have been happy. Spending time with Nicole, able to freely make friends with others, away from Tobias. Yet I was just tired.

  Another spasm went through me. That was enough to break me, tears rolling down my cheeks in the faintly lit cabin. I wanted it all out of me: the food, the pain, the cancer, the baby. I was too full of horrid things. I wanted to hollow myself out. To be rid of it all.

  I should have stayed behind. Nicole was stubbornly refusing to let me die. But I was tired. Everything in my head was so flip-floppy. Inspiration that faded into grief, bubbling into hopelessness. I couldn’t keep this up much longer.

  It occurred to me I was alone, Nicole out of the room. How hard would it be to inject myself with the rest of the morphine?

  Though even the idea of trying to slide the needle into my flesh made my stomach knot. Plus, I knew I would fuck something up, Nicole would save me, and then everything would be so, so much worse.

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  I immediately felt guilt for considering such a thing.

  “Elsy?” Nicole asked quietly, slipping through the gap in the curtain.

  “I’m awake.” I sniffed. “Where did you go?”

  “Just checking in with Captain Tameron. Everyone is worried about your health,” Nicole explained, sitting in the seat beside mine. “It is… sweet, if not a tad pathetic. Tobias Jr. seems to be a sort of symbol of hope.”

  That made me chuckle flatly. Oh the irony of that.

  Another cramp shot through me, and my grief returned in full force. “I think the baby is coming. The cramps, they’re becoming… rhythmic, and stronger.”

  Nicole nodded silently. “It’s too early for the baby to be healthy.”

  “He’s dead, Nicole. Obviously,” I huffed, though it came out more like a croak. “W-What do we do now?” I eventually asked, the silence unbearable.

  “Tell me when you have a contraction, and I will time them. Otherwise, we wait, we see if your water breaks,” Nicole replied. “If you’ve ever been faithful, now would be a good time to pray.”

  “You’ve literally known me my entire life. When could I have possibly converted to some stupid religion?” I groaned, another cramp worming its way through my abdomen.

  Nicole chuckled, wiping lubricant from her nose. I was shocked by my own words, the bluntness and biting tone. I felt… out of control. Like a different person, a mean person.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

  “Don’t be,” Nicole shook her head. “It is good to see you… vicious.”

  “I don’t feel vicious, I feel miserable,” I huffed.

  “I know,” she said, taking my hand and squeezing it. “But I think you’re vicious, somewhere in there.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to something so… I didn’t even know. But it made me smile. Fondness, that's what I was. What Nicole so often filled me with.

  “You need to brush your hair,” she added after a moment.

  I groaned. “Why are you so obsessed with my hair?”

  “Obsessed?” she huffed.

  “Yes,” I laughed. It felt good to laugh. It had been so long.

  “I merely notice when your appearance requires maintenance," Nicole rolled her neck, sounding almost defensive. “Biologicals change appearance so often. Things are always growing or changing colour. No consistency,” she snorted.

  I smiled. She was ridiculous. “Maybe you’re just too consistent. How long have you had the same white shoulder-length hair and white pantsuit?”

  “Since you’re being silly I won't bother calculating the answer, a long time,” Nicole replied.

  “Cramp,” I grimaced, squeezing my eyes shut and exhaling out my nose. I squeezed Nicole’s hand tight. I appreciated that she let me continuously hold onto it. It grounded me.

  It was yet another cramp in the countless that would torment me as the hours went by. Streamlined my ass. I hadn’t even gotten to the actual labour part and it was already horrid. How baseline humans did it was beyond me.

  Well… they probably had a hospital, and a team of doctors and fancy machines, and all the fucking painkillers they could ever want.

  Nicole tried playing cards with me once it became clear I was not going back to sleep. I was far too agitated.

  It wasn’t even the pain, really, though I had quite a low tolerance to it. It was that the contractions came again and again, and again and again. I already felt horrid. inflammation, nausea, a headache, and the stupid oxygen mask I had to wear to not pass out. Nothing was working right.

  Bless her heart, Nicole was trying to keep me in good spirits. But I just felt utterly defeated. Thank God I wouldn’t have to deal with a baby at the end of this.

  The thought was a cruel one. That was a whole new range of emotions I had never experienced before. It was cruel, but it wasn’t untrue.

  I wasn’t keen on being a mother at the best of times, and considering the state of the Euphorion Expedition, well, it might just be doubly for the best.

  I lay sideways in the adjacent seats, my head in Nicole’s lap as she brushed and untangled my hair. It wasn’t about the brushing, nor even about the way her fingers massaged into my scalp. Maybe it was about whatever chemical reaction made me feel all warm and floaty in the best of ways. It felt motherly… though I had no point of reference, it’s just what I imagined having a mother would feel like.

  The first time we had done this was the night I had been born. Unable to speak, confused as to practically everything, before I had met Tobias, and my young, foolish brain had decided he was all I would ever need. The second time was the morning after my wedding night. My head had been full of images, stories, and fairy tales before then. A bubble popped, my optimism drifting into uneasy acceptance.

  Birth, marriage, death. The three important hallmarks of my very short life.

  A drop of lubricant fell onto my cheek.

  “Sorry,” Nicole said hurriedly as I wiped it away. It felt different between my fingers, watery rather than viscous. Was she finally running low?

  Nicole had no need to apologize.

  “Is it strange that I am jealous of you?” I asked. “Tobias values your mind because you're brilliant. You’re immune to body stupidity. If anything breaks, it can just be replaced.”

  “Tobias only values my mind because I lack the power that would make it resentment,” Nicole replied, her voice modulating oddly. “Were I biological, I would be a risk politically, especially were I to have a son. In a sense, he has split the role of wife between us to ensure his power.”

  I snorted. “It’s so dumb it’s brilliant.”

  “No, just dumb,” Nicole replied with amusement. “I can teach you, and you can back me politically. As for biology… I may be more resilient, but I am incapable of healing on my own. Everything has its ups and downs, Elsy.”

  “I guess,” I muttered.

  “I don’t want you to pity my situation, but please don’t idolize it either,” Nicole asked hesitantly.

  “Okay,” I replied. “Do you ever wish you were uh biological?”

  “No,” Nicole replied without hesitation. “I think the longer I live, the more I grow to be disgusted by humans.”

  Her words made my stomach curdle. I disgusted her. I knew she did not mean it that way. But I so desperately wanted to believe that I was like any other human. To think what I aspired to most revolted her… I didn’t know what else to feel other than guilt and shame.

  “Another contraction,” I grunted, my fingers digging into her thigh in pain. For the first time, I welcomed it. There was no better way to change the conversation.