“Push!” one of the nurses insisted, leaning over directly into my face. “You push now! Push! Push!”
I don't know how long I kept pushing. It felt like days, but it was probably only cleks...or minutes, I corrected myself mentally. I was having a bad reaction to the drugs they gave me. For all I knew, those might end up killing me. Now that my reproductive system was part Drakon, who knew what might affect me, and how?
But through the fear, through the anguish, through the feeling of being torn in half, I pushed. I pushed.
Until I heard a baby crying. Then another.
The medical staff were staring down at the newborns, which were covered in scales and screaming. Both boys. Both beautiful to behold. “They're all right,” I tried to say, even though my lungs felt like they had no breath left in them. “I promise, they're fine, really...icthyosis, that's all...vulgaris...just like their...father...”
Suddenly, I felt weightless, as though all gravity had been removed from the room. It took a moment for me to realize that I'd been scooped up into Dashel's arms, along with the twins. God, he was so strong, even in his human form.
“Come on,” he said firmly. “We're getting out of here.”
Yes, you beautiful alien bastard, I thought senselessly. Time to abduct me...beam me up to the mothership, Scotty...take me to your leader, ha...we come in peace...
He carried me out into the hospital's hallway, just as a group of men in uniform came striding in. “Stop!” the first one said, holding up a hand in a warning gesture. “You come with us! You answer our questions!”
Dashel did not stop.
Instead, he put his head down and sped up, ramming into the men like a bowling ball hitting a set of pins – and just like pins, they fell and scattered. By the time they were up on their feet and able to give chase, we'd almost reached the exit.
When we made it outside, I couldn't believe my eyes. Ranel was waiting for us behind the wheel of what I would have sworn was a late model sedan. “Get in!” he yelled. “Now!”
Dashel hustled me into the back seat. “Nice car,” I slurred. “Where'd you get it?”
“My idea,” Dashel said. “I told Grenek to modify an escape pod with holo-projectors, just like he did when the Pax chased us into the nebula. We programmed them to mimic one of this planet's vehicles.”
“Except it's fast enough to get us outside of the city without anyone catching up,” Ranel added, keeping his eyes on the road.
Sure enough, the pod easily outran the government vehicles that pursued us – and once it reached a remote area of the countryside, its holo-projectors switched off and its repulsors blazed, carrying us up into the night sky where the Wyvern was waiting.
Epilogue Dashel
It had been almost a year since we returned to Nort.
The twin boys were thriving – as much as they loved spending time with me and their mother, they seemed to love the visits from Ranel the most. The grumpier he acted, the more he made them laugh, until he'd eventually give in and chuckle as well. He made toy spaceships for them, staging dramatic re-enactments of famous battles between the Pax and Hielsrane. “Some day,” he told them both solemnly, “you'll be better captains than your father ever was. Not that that would be difficult, mind you. You've already got more sense than he has, and you can't even talk yet.”
The mining colonies were thriving as well under Hielsrane rule. When she wasn't looking after the younglings, Natalie was enjoying her new position as Supreme Overseer to all nine camps. Even though they had been granted their freedom, I was surprised to find that almost all of the slaves chose to stay behind and keep working the mines. They were unfamiliar with the vastness of space and the dangers it held, and they didn't have the means to go offworld on their own anyway. Besides, most of them were terrified that they'd immediately be re-captured by the Pax and put back into forced servitude.
So now they labored in exchange for a percentage of the riches the mine yielded. They'd chosen the one called Gordon as their unofficial spokesman, to bring up requests and grievances to Natalie. They worked hard, to be sure, but they seemed content.
Some of them took brief trips to other moons and planets during their time off, escorted by a small hired contingent of Drakon warriors. Some joyously spent their earnings on the material pleasures the universe offered, while others put theirs aside, planning to retire someday. There was talk that a group of them would someday form a nearby independent colony for that purpose, and a few who were talented at structural engineering spent their off-hours sketching out the plans for it.
A handful of them were even coupling, and raising families together, now that they didn't live in fear of being killed by their masters each day.
The Hielsrane fleet wasn't too happy with this arrangement. To most of them, slaves were slaves, and they were to be treated as such – not paid for their efforts from money that should have gone to Thirren or coddled with trips to amusement centers and promises of autonomy in their old age. They often threatened to correct this state of affairs, before their other slave camps started getting dangerous ideas about freedom and wages.
But whenever that happened, Tarion always stepped in, putting his full support behind the way of life that had been established on Nort. After all, he was always able to remind them of a simple and undeniable fact: That although this new way of doing things may have been different from what the Hielsrane were used to, the mine's output had been increased tenfold.
“It's better to be loved than feared,” Natalie said with an enigmatic smile. I wasn't sure I agreed with this principle across the board, but in this context, it seemed to ring true.
One day,
