✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Three - Part XXXVII: Labor

          Nova knew that he was back in the medbay—he recognized the ceiling, the beeping of the mobile monitor, Gabriel and Julia's blurry faces—but he didn't know how it had happened. The last thing he sort of remembered was being brought outside and Sam gloating, but it all blended together and was strangely indistinct. And now, somehow, he was back here. Julia kept cooing at him as she finished getting him hooked up to the monitors and lifted his legs into the stirrups, but he couldn't really hear what she was saying.

          Gabriel returned before Nova could realize he wasn't there, and Julia passed him the oxygen mask she'd just picked up and reattached to the oxygen supply. Without intervention, his oxygen level had fallen below 90%, and his heartbeat and respiratory rate continued to speed up in response.

          "Nova, sweetheart, you with me?" Gabriel pressed the mask in position over his mouth and nose and carefully lifted his head to get it securely in place. He gently ran his thumb along his jaw and urged him again when he didn't respond, "Nova?"

          Nova opened his eyes a little more and tried to focus on his face, but his vision was cloudy and the room was spinning. Even despite the supplementary oxygen, his breathing remained distressed, and he barely managed to respond. "Ahh... Gabe..."

          "Yes baby, it's me," his brow creased when he noticed how short of breath he was becoming. "Stay with me, okay?"

          "Gabe... he could fib any second—he needs to be shocked," Julia said worriedly as she observed the trace. His heart raced along in the upper 180 BPM range, and as the seconds passed, more and more premature ventricular contractions appeared in an attempt to disrupt the dangerously fast rhythm.

          "Fuck," Gabriel turned and grabbed the manual paddles with one hand and the gel with the other. He hastily applied a generous amount to the sternal paddle before he rubbed the capacitors together. He thumbed the joules dial so that it read 200J, and as he placed them around Nova's heart, he tried to prepare him for the shock to follow. "Nova... your heartbeat is very fast and irregular, and I need to shock you 'for real' now... try to take some deep breaths..."

          As the defibrillator charged, Nova tried to comply and breathe deeply, but he found himself utterly incapable of it. He cringed when he felt another powerful contraction ripple through him, and he thought he might pass out when the Daxut entered his vaginal canal—the dose of painkillers he'd be given wasn't quite enough, and the pain made him cry out softly beneath the oxygen mask.

          "Okay, sweetheart... here we go," he glanced at Julia to make sure she was standing clear first, and then he pressed discharge. Nova's body tensed beneath his grip, and he grunted loudly when the larger electrical current surged through his chest. Gabriel tightened his lips—he hated to cause him intense pain like this, but kept holding the paddles against him while the monitor got a read on him again.

         "It worked," Julia said with relief. "It's still fast, around one-thirty, but it's sinus."

         "There's my strong baby," Gabriel quickly placed the paddles aside and rubbed his sternum. "I'm gonna push the pillows back up so you're comfortable, okay?"

          Nova offered a slight nod and tried to focus solely on taking deep bracing breaths. The oxygen flowing through the mask was helping the headache and dizziness he'd been experiencing, but he was still confused as to how all this happened—and was even more confused when he recognized the sudden pressure and distortion of reality that came on as lightwarping.

          "Ugh..." Gabriel groaned as he lost his balance and caught himself on the edge of the gurney. "Guess we're here now..."

          Julia had been knocked into the back wall near the foot of the gurney, but she easily found her footing again when reality normalized.