“Commander Helix needs medical assistance immediately.” The voice on the communicator sounded tense. “Severe headache, blurred vision, confusion. She’s asking for Dr. Parker specifically.”
Aeon was already moving, pulling on clothes with efficient movements. “She’s thirty-five weeks along, correct?”
“Affirmative.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach. I scrambled out of his bed, grabbing my clothes from where they’d been hastily discarded hours before.
“Those symptoms...” I didn’t need to finish my thought. The look Aeon gave me confirmed he was thinking the same thing.
“Preeclampsia,” he said, his jaw tight.
We raced through the colony’s paths, the humid night air of Planet Alpha clinging to my skin. The medical bay was not too far from Aeon’s quarters.
When we burst through the doors, Laine—one of my most promising trainees—was already helping Helix onto an examination table. The commander’s face was drawn with pain, her usually commanding presence diminished by whatever was happening inside her body.
“Something’s wrong,” she gasped, reaching for Aeon’s arm. “I can feel it.”
Before I could even approach with the blood pressure cuff, Helix’s body went rigid. Her eyes rolled back, and she began to convulse.
“She’s seizing! Get her on her side!” I moved with practiced urgency, my hands steady despite the adrenaline coursing through me.
Aeon moved with me in perfect tandem, supporting Helix’s head while I administered the emergency medication.
“This is eclampsia,” I said, meeting Aeon’s intense gaze. “We need to deliver this baby now or we could lose them both.”
Once the seizure subsided, I made the call. “We’re inducing. Now. Prep for emergency delivery.”
My fingers worked quickly, breaking her water manually while Aeon and Laine gathered the equipment we’d need. For a moment, I caught myself. Here I was, light-years from Earth, about to deliver a cyborg commander’s baby in the middle of an alien jungle. And I wasn’t just doing my job anymore. I genuinely cared what happened to these people. To Helix. To her child.
“Contractions are starting, but her blood pressure is still climbing,” Laine reported, her voice steady despite the fear in her eyes.
“We’ve done drills for this, remember? Aeon, I need you with me every step.”
His hand briefly covered mine, steadying me. “I’m right here.”
As Helix’s labor progressed at an alarming pace, I felt the weight of every decision. Back on Earth, I’d have had a full OR team and specialized equipment. Here, we had what we’d cobbled together and what we’d trained for in our makeshift classes.
“You can do this,” Aeon whispered, close enough that only I could hear. “We can do this.”
And somehow, against the odds, we did. After ninety minutes of the most intense delivery I had ever managed, a tiny, perfect cry filled the medical bay.
Before long, I sank into the nearest chair, my hands shaking with the aftermath of adrenaline as I watched Helix cradle her newborn daughter against her chest. The little one’s cries had settled into soft cooing sounds, and her tiny fingers wrapped around her mother’s thumb. For all her military bearing, Helix looked utterly transformed by the bundle in her arms—softer and more vulnerable. Her usual steely resolve had melted into something tender and raw.
“You did it,” Laine whispered, squeezing my shoulder. “We never could have managed without you.”
“No.” I shook my head firmly. “You all did this. Every drill, every late-night study session—it paid off when it mattered most.” My voice cracked a little. “I’ve never been prouder of a medical team, honestly.”
The room hummed with quiet celebration as the cyborg trainees moved efficiently around us, checking vitals, replenishing fluids, and documenting every detail with the precision I’d drilled into them over the past weeks. At that moment, they weren’t my captors or my students. They were colleagues who’d stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me through one of the most harrowing deliveries I’d ever faced.
“I need some air,” I murmured, after triple-checking that both mother and baby were stable.
The night air hit me like a balm as I stepped onto the open walkway. Planet Alpha’s twin moons cast everything in a silvery-blue glow, illuminating the dense jungle canopy beyond the settlement’s perimeter. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with the sweet, earthy scent that still felt alien to me after all this time.
Heavy footsteps approached, and I didn’t need to turn to know it was Aeon. His presence had become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.
“That was...” he began but then paused, searching for words. “What you did in there?—”
“What we did,” I corrected, finally turning to face him. The moonlight carved shadows across his face, highlighting the strong line of his jaw and the intensity in his eyes that never seemed to dim.
