Here's a preview of my part of the fanfic:
"What if you give birth during the battlefield?"
Christian's words turned out to be prophetic.
Majara's first pangs began in the middle of the battlefield. Small at first, like a bit of a small indigestion, and she paid no attention to it. She fought on for hours--she twisted, dodged and leapt. Sometimes the pains enhanced her strength and she took advantage of those moments. With her psychic powers to plant suggestions into the enemies' minds, she battled through Navokai soldiers, taking out the commander of their soulless squadron. Without guidance the troops ran rampant. Chaos reigned.
Then Majara ducked an incoming shot and felt something in her belly pop. Fluids started to leaked out between her legs and through her suit and flooded down her thighs. Skirmishes became a swirling haze. Opponents were brutally dispatched as Majara lashed out. Pain clouded her perception and she never saw where the bodies fell. She could feel her womb holding and releasing. Slow pulses at first, then more frequent and faster, like a fist tightening. Fighting through the contractions soon became impossible. Her body screamed with an instinct she never felt before and did not understand.
Now on her knees, Majara crawled through smoke, flames and shadows. Shells exploded so close their shrapnel showered her in fire. Still she pressed on. Her amniotic fluids trailed in her wake with traces of her Irken blood in it, like a greenish slime.
"Please..." Majara whispered, "...just a little...further..."
No choice.
She looked to the left. Then to the right. All around her were the bodies of fallen friends and foes, their blank, misty eyes staring into eternity.
Majara dragged the bodies into a pile. She formed a crude, round shelter and inched underneath, conscious that every single face represented a shattered dream.
She doubled down on her hands and knees. Her forehead touched the ground. The pains were less than a minute apart and turned her vision white. Who was she? Why did she hurt? Why was she here again?
Sightless eyes were everywhere. So many dead...so much white-hot agony. She felt as if her body was going to be ripped in two. Was this supposed to hurt that bad? Her memories retained from her original specimen indicated that Irken histories spoke of childbirth in the old days before cloning as just a process, like how Earth animals would lay or bear their young, with very minimal to no pain, with no lasting effects. Only humans...
Humans.
Half of what her smeeby is right now.
Majara could feel her cloacas parting. She shakily used her blade to tear that area of clothing apart, revealing her exposed cloacas that began to part wider, as if in a dilation movement. Another contraction caused it to part its widest, exposing the tender folds of her vagina within that was opening and closing as the muscles within worked on its own accord to expel the egg inside her.
"Oh!" Majara dragged air into her lungs, cursing in Irken profanities. Her vision blurred and once or twice she thought she had passed out. A distant muffled ringing was in her ears. Smells of blood, amniotic fluids, gun powder and smoke from the dead bodies and her sweat and hot breath choked the small space.
The pain--the pain was unmatched by any physical agony she experienced in the past.
Afraid, alone, but somehow knowing what to do, Majara screamed out as she started pushing along with the contractions, letting instincts take over her being. The tip of the egg began to crown through the walls of her vagina. Blood and mucus clung to it and came off on her hand in strings as she tried to pry the folds of her womb more for easier access. Majara growled into the burning sensation of her womb stretched to the limit...like a ring of fire. More sweat flowed and fresh tears continuously poured down her cheeks, adding to her discomfort. She groaned, hissed and panted, arching down her back and spreading her legs wider as she pushed as hard as she could.
She wished for dear life and to gods of all religion, both Irken and Earthian, that Christian was there with her to go through this, but it was wishful thinking. He was miles away back at the base and her psychic connection with him was not that strong or close enough to allow him to feel her distress. A few times she was tempted to just break down and cry and admit defeat, but it was not an option. She was an Invader, and she had to be strong in his absence. Her smeeby needs to be born right now and there is no way she could stop this.
Furrows marked where her fingers dug into the dirt. She pushed down some more, a whimper she didn't know she could make escaped her lips. The egg inched out further. She was deaf and blind to the chaos outside her makeshift shelter. Outside did not matter. Her objective--to have this child--became the only thing she cared about. She felt every inch of the egg as it emerged from her body.
And so, with death and despair pressing down upon her back, Majara pushed one last time and cried out as she brought forth life. Her agonized shriek faded to silence--and, almost gently, the egg slid out of her body and fell between her legs.
"Unh..." Majara collapsed onto her side, clutching the egg that fit perfectly in both arms and soon passed out, entombing herself in the mound of bodies, obeying her body's need to succumb to the Land of Nod, not realizing that her fingers had unconsciously reached to the wristband on her left hand to press on the distress call beacon.
----
"....jara? Majara?"
Majara's eyes slowly fluttered open as cool air slowly seeped through her makeshift birth sanctuary. She groaned as the light hit her eyes and she slowly looked up to see who it was that rudely roused her from her peaceful slumber.
"D...Dib-worm? How...?"
"I got your distress call signal. Didn't think I'd find..." Dib paused as he saw the egg held possessively in her arms. "Is...Is that...?"
Majara looked down to where he was gesturing and soon remembered the grueling ordeal she had just went through. There was the product of her and Christian's union right there in her arms, cradled safely within her embrace, born just minutes, maybe hours, ago. She just tiredly nodded a reply.
"We'll talk about it later. We better get you back to the base before the Navokai catch wind of this. Come on."
Majara immediately forgot the pain of her delivery at the thought of the Navokai getting their hands on her smeeby. She quickly reached up to take Dib's hand, forcing her tired body to get onto her feet and allowed him to hoist her arm around his shoulder, while her other arm clutched the egg gently to her chest in a protective embrace. Keeping her smeeby alive was all that mattered, and she would do anything to ensure it.
Dib looked at Majara's thighs and was worried that the blood and fluids would attract the Navokai's attention. Making sure that the female Irken had the egg secured in her arms, he checked his surroundings and raced to take cover behind a row of abandoned barracks. Take cover, check, run. Cover, check, run. Hopefully the trail was too irregular to follow. He repeated the random pattern all the way back to base, and only after venturing inside did he feel safe enough to breathe.
----
Christian ran like the wind towards the medic chambers. Word of his fiance being admitted reached him through his communicator from Dib and he wanted nothing other than to make sure his beloved was alright.
As the sliding door hissed open, Christian saw her lying dwn in bed. Her human disguise was disabled, her antenna laid back and spread against the pillow. She looked like she had ran a marathon, slightly pale from loss of blood, but other than that she was her same old self.
In her arms was the egg, bearing the swirly marks of the dominant genes of the father, as all Irken eggs in the past do to determine the paternal donor. There was no doubt that the mixture of red and green, the features of his hair and eyes, were engraved on that shell, screaming "You're the father" at his face.
He wanted to grab Majara, to scold her for being brash, for going out secretly like this to battle while she is carrying his child, THEIR child, inside her. He wanted to yell into her mind that she was being such an idiot for even thinking of risking her and their baby's life to play hero.
He wanted to say all that and more.
But seeing Majara, his beloved fiance, cradling the egg so tenderly with a look no Irken is capable of having, he lost all heart to even think of doing that. He realized whatever happened had happened, and that she was there right now safe and sound, with their baby. That's all that mattered.
Besides, she had been through enough. It was punishment enough for her. This was not the time or place for him to rub it in.
Majara looked up at him and he could see those no-nonsense eyes she often portrayed when she tried to be strong. A small smile creased along her lips as he heard her whispered weakly, "Look, it's our smeeby. It's safe."
Christian gave her a sad look of pity. How it must've hurt her so badly to go through the birth alone without him by her side. He felt like kicking himself for not being there for her, for having to let her go through the birth alone out there surrounded by death and destruction. Natural birth, for an Irken like her who has been brought up to learn that artificial creation of life was the way to go, must have been frightfully painful for her, and he wasn't even there to help her ease that pain.
His musing was broken when he saw her eyes melt into a pool of tears and her facial expression collapsed into that of a child who was caught doing something terribly wrong.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...It hurts so bad...It really hurts..."
Christian speed-walked to her and knelt down beside her at the bed, hugging her close in a tight embrace, rocking her gently to and fro, letting her sob in his chest, allowing her these few moments of vulnerability that was privy between them to share.
"Stupid...Stupid...You're so stupid...You're so stupid, you know that...?" Christian whispered affectionately over and over again in her mind, his tone telling her that there was nothing to be sorry about, that her pain was finally over.
They had their baby. They were a family. That's all that mattered.
More to come...
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