Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Mara
It’s the fifth day of my glamorous new morning routine.
I’ve discovered I can throw up at seven in the morning and still, somehow, be stupidly happy. I rinse, brush my teeth twice, study myself in the little mirror and smile.
Because I’m having a baby.
And I’m going to be a mom.
Yes, morning sickness sucks and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but this also confirms there’s a baby on the way, growing inside of me each and every day, getting larger.
It’s fantastical.
I keep turning this new fact over like a stone I found in the road that turned out to be a gem.
My whole life I’ve wanted to eventually become a mom.
I’ve loved the idea of eventually coming to a stage in life where I could slow down a bit and have a husband, children and an actual family in my home.
Underneath the classified clearances, competitive hardship compensation and the frequent-transporter aspirations… I’ve always wanted to start a family.
I truly love my job though. Engineering and specializing in power stations is my life’s work and I’ve gone in deep.
Starting at eighteen years old I earned a placement in two different, back-to-back, highly competitive internships, then I worked for years as the assistant to a Gravian Engineer on Salo who taught me everything I know.
And now, at the age of thirty-three, I’m already considered the best at planetary, large-scale, Illibrium installations, to the point where I’m now working on the actual Illibrium mine on Timbur.
I’m good at what I do and I get a lot of joy out of making sure a huge facility hums along beautifully.
But another part of me has always wanted a husband and children to round out this lonely life I’ve been leading.
And here it finally is, arriving in the least convenient way imaginable, on a mining rock at the edge of the galaxy, courtesy of a man who never wanted to be a father and who considered our relationship nothing more than passing fancy.
But I genuinely, to my own surprise, do not care how this pregnancy originated. Yes, this was a mistake, this child was not planned for and its father is most likely going to want nothing to do with being a parent. I’m going to be alone in all of this.
But…I’ve flipped the script and I consider this a blessing.
I’m simply joyful that I’m going to have my first baby. I haven’t changed my mind on this in the least; I still want to keep this baby. My thoughts on this matter have only solidified.
I grin at myself in the mirror like a lunatic. I’ve got this. This is a child I never expected but am thrilled to have happened. And I can carry and deliver this baby, raise it alone and finish this job. Yep. I’m tough that way.
Then I lace up my boots, zip up my uniform, clip on my gear and get to work.
“How are you this morning?” Andrew questions as we take the elevator to the lobby. “You look…tired.”
“Fine,” I smile wide, not mentioning my morning vomit session. “It’s true that I seem to need more naps lately, but other than that I’m good.”
He grunts, looking down at his tablet. Andrew oversees our schedule and does a good job, keeping us on track. “You should go down to the med lab to get that checked out, just in case,” he comments. “We don’t want to be slowed down on this assignment by something that could be fixed right away.”
“No worries, I went down to the med lab yesterday already. They gave me some vitamins and said I’ll be fine.”
He grunts. “Good.”
What he doesn’t know is that I actually went down to the med lab because I wanted full confirmation that this pregnancy was really happening, and that all was well.
I went in expecting a readout and a due date.
And there I was, tears in my eyes, as a very calm machine voice stated, Pregnancy confirmed.
Gestation normal. No anomalies detected. Estimated term, standard.
“The good news is that medical records here are strictly confidential,” the tech had assured me. “Nothing about this will route to your supervisor.”
I was pleased for both the confirmation of my pregnancy and on the confidentiality.
This is only a short-term assignment. Soon, I will have Timbur’s grid fixed and audited, collect the very handsome bonus, and return home to New Earth.
Meanwhile, I won’t tell a single soul in Minecorp that this is happening because it has nothing to do with my work performance.
I’ll simply get this job done, then return home and that’s when I’ll jump-start this whole new ‘being a mom’ huge, huge, life change.
The hardest part is keeping this to myself. I want to tell Andrew, of course, but I’m ninety-nine percent certain he wouldn’t be able to keep the news private. I’ll wait to tell him the moment we step off the transporter disk back in Singapore.
I’d like to tell Leah, my new friend from across the hallway. Twice today my thumb has hovered over Leah’s name on my tablet. She’s a mother herself, but I can’t tell her either.
I’m an engineer with a grid to fix, and that is all I’m going to be while on this assignment.
Today’s work, at least, is going well. No, I haven’t found the problem yet, but I’m almost done with my audit of the new grid.
I love it down here, working on the Timbur mine.
This is the most impressive thing I’ve ever set my hands inside, and every level I descend into makes me love this place more.
I’ve of course, worked on systems powered by Illibrium before, but I’ve never been to the actual source.
I’ll remember this special posting for the rest of my life.
The crystal-light runs blue through everything, soft and steady, and the Illibrium itself, when I get close to a live vein, is genuinely beautiful, a thing I could look at for a long time and not get bored.
I’ve spent my whole career reading power systems the way other people read faces, and this one has a face I actually like.
And I’m close to figuring out what is wrong with their grid.
What I need to finish this out is the information I requested from that mysterious Fever Brother, the one who keeps following me around like he’s security, but he’s not.
All I keep thinking about today, besides the work and the baby…is that Scar will show up sometime today, with that extra information. And I’m not excited simply for the info…I’m thrilled to see that handsome miner up close and personal again.
Jeez.
I want it on the record that I am a serious woman. I’ve never once in my career gotten flustered by a colleague. I’m always focused on my work.
And yet, here I am, all hot and bothered over a Xylan Margol miner.
He barely talks and has a scar carved down the side of his face.
But to me, this only makes him even more handsome in an edgy, mysterious, kind of way.
His chest, thighs and ass are utter perfection.
His lips are so very kissable. I’ve even taken a glance at his crotch several times, trying to catch a glimpse of his epic package.
What is wrong with me? Are the pregnancy hormones making me horny?
Thank the gods for the gloves of the unmated, honestly. My body is out here making decisions without consulting the rest of me, and I have never in my life been so grateful for regulation handwear.
I’m going to be a total professional about this though. Brisk. Competent. All business. He’s a records source and a colleague, and that is all he’s going to be, and I’m not going to think about his forearms even one more time.
A few hours later I’m having lunch with Leah Hernandez in the employee cafeteria.
The cafeteria is enormous and I’ve enjoyed taking most of my meals here.
It’s a long, bright room carved half into the rock and half out of it, one whole wall of tall windows looking out into the jungle so that the green presses right up against the glass while you eat.
Crystal-light and daylight mix overhead into something warm and golden.
It should feel industrial, a company canteen, and instead it feels like the busiest, happiest kitchen you’ve ever walked into.
Xylan miners and Minecorp employees pack the long tables, enormous, loud and easy with each other.
I came to Timbur, braced for ration bars and gray protein, and instead there’s a fancy food dispenser in my quarters and a human female named Jana who runs the whole food operation.
She’s an amazing chef Minecorp managed to recruit who has decided to stay because she also fell in love with a Fever Brother, the same as Leah.
In fact, Jana’s pregnant right now with her second child and still working.
I wave and smile as I make my way down the buffet line. Then I take a seat with Leah at a table for two. My tray has some kind of rich layered stew over grain. “This is genuinely one of the best things I’ve ever eaten,” I mumble.
“Right?” Leah beams like she made it herself. “Jana’s a wizard. And thank you, by the way, for eating with me. I usually grab lunch with Naomi, but she’s holed up in the studio with a deadline.”
“No, thank you. It’s nice to have found another human female I can talk with on this position. Normally, when I work off-planet, I’m the only human female in the entire facility.” I lean forward. “Can I ask you a hundred nosy questions?”
“Oh, please do. I love talking about myself. It’s my favorite hobby after gossip.”
“Okay, start at the beginning. How does a human end up here, living on a Xylan outpost?”
“Ugh, I was so green,” Leah laughs. “Fresh out of university, with no experience. And I get this training position at Minecorp the only company in the universe that mines Illibrium and I about lost my mind. I was such a fangirl I didn’t even care that it was temporary.”
“Temporary?”