I entered the room behind her and she moved to the control station built next to one of the six chairs. “All right. If we aren’t calling your mother, who are we calling?”
A huge lump clogged my throat, like I’d tried to swallow an entire loaf of bread whole. Rather than try to talk, I reached into the pocket of my suit jacket—I’d bought the suit special so I would look professional, mature and strong for this—and pulled out a piece of plastic.
Warden Egara watched me with a curious look on her face until I placed the object flat on the table and removed my hand.
“Two pink lines for pregnant, right?”
“Oh my god.” Her eyes rounded with shock—or maybe horror—as she looked from the home pregnancy test up to my face. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes. Apparently. Had the ultrasound yesterday.”
“I see. And the father—”
“They’re Velik’s.” I hadn’t slept with anyone for months before, and none after. So, yeah. That asshole Atlan beast was the baby-daddy. I debated telling him at all, but then I’d remembered what it had been like for me and Adrian growing up without a father. Scratch that, with a father who paid my mother off to make sure he never had to see us. I didn’t want that for my children.
“They?”
“Twins. Runs in the family.” I shrugged and ignored the dark well of pain rising up to choke me. Again. Of course I would get pregnant with twins. I couldn’t just fuck up one poor infant’s life, I had to make it two.
“I—”
I’d never seen her at a loss for words. “You can order genetic testing if you don’t believe me. I don’t really care if you believe me or not. The only reason I’m here at all is because I’m not the kind of person who is going to keep the children from their father just because he didn’t want to be with me.”
She sat in the chair, staring at her hands for several minutes while I waited for her to decide what she was going to do.
“Stefani, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Please, have a seat.” She pulled the back of the chair next to her away from the table so there was room for me. I shook my head.
“No thanks. I need to do this standing up. And on the big screen please.”
“Do you want me to leave the room once I get through?”
“No. It’s fine. This isn’t a social call.” It was personal, very, very personal. But not social. There would be no love talk or phone sex or secrets told. This was a courtesy call to the father of my unborn children. If he wanted to make an effort to be part of their lives, so be it. If not? So be it. I was done crying over him. D.O.N.E.
I stood patiently as Warden Egara worked her magic at the controls. A few moments later an image of a stranger in a Coalition Fleet uniform appeared on the large screen at the front of the room. He looked at the two females calling him and scowled at us. “This is Battleship Zeus. State the nature of your call. We are in a comm block. In fact, how did you get through?”
His scowl morphed into outright hostility as other fighters moved around behind him. He was clearly on a spaceship somewhere. The gadgets and gizmos behind him could have come straight out of a sci-fi movie.
Warden Egara entered something into her control panel and scowled right back. She didn’t appear to be intimidated in the slightest. Which was good, because I was about to throw up all over this nice, shiny table.
“Check your code screen, sir. Protocol IBPWP-5623. This is Warden Egara from Earth. I need to speak with Warlord Velik. Tell him Stefani Davis, the woman who saved him from the jellyfish poison and whom he later spoke with at the processing center, is also here. She must speak with Warlord Velik. The matter is urgent.”
The alien—I assumed he was an alien, even though he looked more human than anything—leaned forward in his seat and read… something. Protocol IB—whatever, I assumed. “Very well. One moment Warden Egara. My apologies for my abrupt tone, my lady.”
“I accept your apology. I am aware of the unusual and unexpected nature of this comm.”
He inclined his chin once more. “Please do not disconnect your comm while I locate Warlord Velik.”
Warden Egara assured him we would wait. A second later the screen turned an oddly translucent swirl of colors, as if we were trying to watch what was happening on the bridge of that ship through swirling soap bubbles.
It was about to happen. Oh, god. I was going to see him again. Velik.
My morning sickness, which could be called morning, afternoon and early evening sickness, squeezed my stomach like a vice. It was so bad even my sister had stopped teasing me about it and started keeping a sleeve of saltine crackers in her purse.
I ran for the S-Gen recycling unit I knew was in the corner of the room and heaved the handful of crackers and ginger ale I’d managed to keep down for breakfast. The purge was followed by a round of dry-heaves that made my stomach feel like it was trying to crawl up and out of my throat. God, dry heaves hurt. And my mother had put up with this for all nine months? No wonder Adrian and I didn’t have siblings.
“Oh, dear.” Warden Egara’s voice was sympathetic. I didn’t need soft emotions right now. Pity. Empathy. I was barely holding myself together as it was.
I felt, rather than saw, the warden get to her feet to try to help me. Not that she could do anything about my perpetual vomiting.
