Dead Star Dockyards

347 Labor Day

"-and then he kissed me! On the lips!!!""What a flirt." Petunia patted the head of Titanyana, which was currently pressed into the side of her belly by way of some uncomfortable looking act of contortion. Knees down at the bunkside, shoulder balanced precariously on the edge of the mattress and hands clasped around Petunia's, Titanyana was looking less like a queen and more like an excited little girl. "Did anything else happen in the past two days, or has your mind been full of nothing but his momentary advance?"

In light of Petunia's imminent delivery and a rather nasty storm system rolling in, Donovan and company moved into the Pegasus for the time being. Here, Petunia could be stationed in a room right next to the medical equipment in a climate controlled environment while keeping everyone else out of the harsh weather. The Pegasus was impervious to practically anything nature might throw at it, and the communications array would allow Donovan to keep an eye on everything from the cockpit - not that this was going to be anything more than an extensive thunderstorm.

"I, uh, nothing interesting . . ." In spite of her desire to see the relationship between Titanyana and Donovan flourish, Petunia found the recounting of this experience to provoke bitterness in her. Some of this she could attribute to emotional instability during pregnancy, but the biggest reason was unquestionably how it reminded her of what she lost. 

"Mrf."

"Oh! He did a kick!"

"I am aware." She took a deep breath, regulating the instinct to groan at the pulse from her gut. By the account of the council of crones, she was either well past due for delivery or Boromir was on track to be a child much larger than the average. Neither would be surprising. His father was a large man, and there were plenty of other environmental factors she'd been exposed to that wouldn't have happened on Nekh. For all anyone knew, this was just the result of a higher concentration of Split. "I bet he wants to get out of there."

"I can't wait to meet him." Titanyana rubbed her cheek against the mound, tail flicking back and forth in Petunia's periphery. "Do you think he'll be good at English?"

"I'll make sure of it." She couldn't really bring herself to learn anything right now, but she had taken to heart Diana's assertions about how important it was to speak the language in Boromir's vicinity. He would need to set an example for future generations, and that meant fluency in English.

"Housekeeping!" Diana poked her head through the doorway, scanning for occupants before getting out of the actual housekeeper's way. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm, hrm, alright. My tummy's keeps feeling tighter and tighter as time goes on, but I can handle it." She swung her legs out off of the bunk, wanting to stretch her legs a little whilst Miya changed the bedsheets. "Um, Titanyana?"

"Yup." She twirled up from her spot in an instant, displaying a degree of flexibility and athleticism Petunia could only dream of when unencumbered by a child. In her current state the display almost felt mean. "To the game room?"

"No, I just wanted to walk a few laps."

"I'll have everything done by the time you return, Lady Petunia." Miya took a moment to right Petunia's gown before getting to work on the mattress. It wasn't dirty per se, but Diana had mandated an almost absurd degree of cleanliness for the sake of Boromir. "Will you want water?"

"Yes, and maybe a sweet snack." Luxuries like sugar and honey were to be carefully rationed until there was a stable source of domestic production or some form of economy by which equivalent value could be exchanged, however there was some leeway for the pregnant to satisfy their cravings. Her position as Titanyana's aunt and mother to one of the Strapper line afforded her further resources if she so desired, however she wanted to lead by example. "Maybe a slice of honeyed bread?"

"And a few strips of jerky."

"Yes, and some jerky." Once up she paused to balance her head rush, gently massaging the baby bump. "Jerky would be nice."

- - - - -

"We leave in two weeks?"

"Fifteen days."

"And the projection on the major projects?"

"Current trends suggest you will only be present for the first few hours of the cement plant testing and personnel training."

"Ouch." From the start he knew there was little chance of him being present for the important milestones. He'd simply arrived too late and with too little time to work. Currently, only the gravel pit and improvements to their lumber processing facilities had occurred under his watch.

"With any luck the generator structure should be ready to receive the power package tomorrow, and the electrolysis plant will be set for testing within the week. The steel plant is still at least a month away from completion assuming perfect weather and production from the cement plant, however analysis of the region marked as a source of iron suggests it we will not have supply issues."

"We should still have the crew make a backlog of reduced iron when work becomes possible. Tiny as our final processing capacity might be, it will take time for the supply to build up with limited fuel." At the current rate they'd need a dedicated tanker to ferry gasoline and diesel from the Holifanians. Transporting fuel for all of their trucks, generators, and machinery in jerry cans was tolerable for now, but even a small fleet of mining vehicles would guzzle gas at a rate they couldn't afford. "What are the chances we can start producing biodiesel?"

"Setting aside the competition such a plan would have with agricultural development, I can't imagine the Holifanian vehicles are rated for it. Comparing their technological level to developments made in our own history, they probably make use of natural rubber for their fuel lines. Biodiesel would cause them to degrade much faster than I think we'd like."

"Even something like a five percent blend?"

"Would you be willing to make such a large investment in resources for not even a six percent capacity increase?"

"We'd be better off devoting a Trawler to transport, I know." The material and manufacturing investment for such a facility wouldn't be quite as hefty as one for a tanker, but a tanker wasn't a static fixture or limited to a single type of materiel. In Donovan's eyes that flexibility was far more valuable.

"Alternatively, we could retrofit the industrial fleet's fuel and engine systems to be compatible with a high biodiesel fuel blend. 100% is probably an impractical ask, however we might be able to get a 35 or 40 rating out of them."

"Not worth it." Donovan didn't need Arc to run the numbers. The capacity issue might be fixed by shifting to a different medium, but it would also introduce its own slew of problems. Biodiesel would gel and clump up in colder weather, and Donovan had no intentions of adopting it as standard in the future given the more materially efficient alternatives of petrodiesel, natural gas, and electric propulsion. Any infrastructure set up to handle biodiesel would have a lifetime measured in months and years rather than decades or centuries, and the costs in the interim would be immense. Better to bite the bullet and expand their logistical capabilities the old fashioned way - build more transports. "Let's get a tanker design in the queue."

"Would we like to revisit the current passenger design as well?"

"Are there improvements we can make?"

"Food consumption rates and the average build of the Nekh are slightly lower than our initial minimum bounds. A reduction spacing between floors might not be as comfortable, but we should be able to cram one more in. I can optimize the seats further as well."

"I'll leave that to you, then. Can the earlier designs be retrofitted?"

"I may be able to adjust the layout of seats in them, but hulls one and two have their air circulation systems formatted in a manner that would make a floor rebuild too much of an opportunity cost. The other hulls do not have this restriction."

"Any chance you can strip the RSGs out of them and plant them into new hulls while they are being worked on?"

"I might have spare capacity in a month or so, but I cannot dedicate a week in one of the construction slips for a partial rebuild without affecting future hulls at the moment. Hulls three and five are also going to need minor repairs to the cargo doors, however those will occur amidst the floor retrofit."

"Great." Donovan rubbed his eyes, the video on display pausing as he did. "Chances I'll need to step in during delivery?"

"Minimal, the only predicted scenario requiring your input would be removal of the baby and stitching in the case of a cesarean."

"No staples?"

"I'd like to keep the probabilities of post-operation complications to a minimum. Do you feel comfortable performing that duty?"

"If I don't think it's possible in the moment, I'll have you staple."

"Understood." 

Sighing, Donovan massaged the side of his head. Arc's medical suite was designed to make most procedures - including the delivery of a child - completely autonomous, however there was one situation Donovan and Arc weren't entirely comfortable with leaving to the machine. That was the removal of the baby. Precision incisions and measured applications of pressure and force on the appendages were fine when handling specific portions of the body under anesthesia, but there was a limit to the sensitivity receptors they could manufacture for the traction arms. Perhaps it would be fine with a natural birth and a sufficiently widened birth canal, where the resistance against the baby being removed is minimal, however the slightest complication could very quickly introduce uncertainty in the process, unaffordable risk when presented with a precious new life. 

Human hands were still far more sensitive to minute changes in resistance and could exhibit a much greater range of motion and varieties in the direction of exerted force - qualities pivotal (quite literally in this case) for removing a baby. For a natural birth, Chershei would be enough. The old lady had delivered many children, and this would serve as a bit of a lesson for future midwives waiting at the ready. A cesarean would require someone with experience operating inside the human body.

Unfortunately, no such person existed, however Donovan at the very least understood the theories and practices behind surgery. No amount of cramming would make him a surgeon in so short a time period, however his education in dressing field wounds would suffice so long as he had Arc telling him all the instructions in his ear. The ability to stitch wounds was little more than a bonus.

"When was the last time she had an MRI?"

"Four days ago. As far as I can tell from the imaging and Petunia's biometrics, he should be perfectly healthy upon delivery."

"He's positioned properly?"

"Head down, umbilical cord free of tangles. I won't call it an impossibility for the cord to have wrapped itself around him during this time, however I possess the capacity to sever it inside of the birth canal without an abdominal incision."

"And the size of his head? I heard Chershei talking about how her tummy was larger than any she'd seen before." He'd gathered from various conversations with Petunia that Titanyana's uncle was a much larger than the norm, so it wouldn't be surprising if this Boromir ended up being just as large. "I know Petunia isn't the smallest specimen, but I worry the kid won't fit."

"I understand the fear, however the female body is capable of great feats in this regard. Besides, the entire reason you are needed is in case such a situation occurs. Trust that I have it handled."

"So we have anesthesia handled as well?"

"Diana helped administer a few clinical trials of common pharmaceuticals. No adverse reactions to morphine, acetaminophen, or lidocaine injected intravenously, however they are so far below the traditional dose for Terrans it genuinely beggars belief. I didn't test fentanyl because of its potency, but the trend suggests it will be basically unusable as an anesthetic even in microdoses."

"Not even-" Donovan was shocked at this information, but not out of any sense of despair for the planning of surgery. His concern was with field medicine, particularly the realm of emergency pain relief. He'd experienced the benefits of on-demand painkillers multiple times as part of training, and he'd even gone 'overboard' with the application of them in the mad dash towards the Oberlux. The preferred immediate action slurry for a pilot in combat was a microdose of fentanyl for immediate pain followed by a standard dose of morphine for long term pain suppression - a dangerous cocktail, but if the pilot had reached the point where he needed to use it there was a fairly high chance of death anyways. "So we'll be using lidocaine?"

"I have a dose of morphine on standby if she needs immediate relief or something to soothe her after surgery, but I plan to perform all preoperational numbing with lidocaine."

"Wonderful." Donovan hoisted himself out of the cockpit. He was keeping to a tight 6-3 rotation to keep himself rested for the inevitable. As a schedule to work around only having 6 hours at a time to do anything wasn't the most efficient for getting anything done, however there wasn't much for him to do at the moment given the weather. "I'm gonna take a nap."

"Is the shock collar really necessary?"

"It's the guaranteed method." He knew he was overly reliant on it, but as a method of waking him through extreme exhaustion it was the best he could ask for. There was even a portion of him that viewed it as less of an annoyance than the alarm clock. "Sensitive as I am to waking up, I'm probably going to be less responsive during a three hour session."

"Very well."

"Good night, Arc."

"Good night, Dono-"

"Yeah?" The door to the pilot room slid open just as Donovan reached the door to the miniature bedroom, leading to a somewhat awkward confrontation between himself and Titanyana. "What's up?"

"It's time!"