Nathan walked along the promende towards Harry's when he spotted Tara Charmicheal and Zoe at one of the outside tables. He neared, and said, "Hi, glad you could get a table out here at this hour."
She gave a brilliant smile and laughed. "I have connections," she replied with a wink. "Why do you join us?" she asked.
"I'd love to join you two beautifull ladies." He said piering down to get a good look at Zoe, who was asleep in the stroller. "How are things going in security?" He asked, taking a seat across from her.
"They've been rather interesting," she replied. "There's a new drug on the station. I'm sure you've heard it whispered about in the halls in sickbay?" she hinted gently, her green eyes meeting his own gaze.
He leaned forward in his chair and rested his forearms on the table top. "I've seen two mild cases and know of one major overdose. It's a mold actually that grows on broadleaf-tropical style plants in this sector. The mold is scrapped off and cut with a really fine celulose/sucrose powder and can range from pink in color to blue/lavander--the color doesn't corrolate to strength but more which planet and plant the mold is harvested from." A waitperson arrived and they ordered and when alone again he continued. "Its a hallucinogenic, rapid absorption through mucus membraines of all species, seems to be slower clearance from the bodies of heme' class blood types--mainly humans."
"You know quite a bit, I see," she replied with a hint of a smile. "It's getting to be a larger problem on the station. I'm having to take steps to break the foothold that's been made with its distributors."
Their food arrived and they started eating. After a couple of minutes Nathan smiled and said, "well at least you wont have to worry about it being cultivated or processed here." He took a sip of his drink, sat back in his chair, and said, "The only bad things are ---its dirt cheap, takes up a small volume of space for shipping, and it takes several doses to become 'hooked'. They high from it I've been told is great fun...but the hallucinations keep people from making it a habit."
"So I've heard," Tara replied, as she thought of Katianna and what she knew of the hallucinations her friend had had from the dust.
"Let me know if I can help in anyway. You're not the only one worried about this. Paul Deveraux was so ticked off that he's working on creating a straw that will detect it in drinks. He's working with Troy from Soma and Harry for production and distribution...so no one else gets dosed without their knowledge." He sat forward and took another bite out of his pizza.
Tara smiled to herself as she thought of Paul working toward this. She knew how upset he'd been after Katianna's drugging. It had been quite obvious to her. She took a bit of her chicken ceaser salad and looked at Nathan. "If anyone can do that, I know Paul can," she replied.
Suddenly a sound got Tara's attention. It was a soft groan from behind her. She turned around immediately to see a woman seated with a fork in her hand filled with taco salad. It immediately fell to the floor in a clatter. After about a minute, the woman let out a frustrated sigh and reached to pick up her fork, but just couldn't do it. Tara's CVI immediately brought forth the image of the woman's face and name and where she knew her from. It was Miranda MacKinnon from the Prepared Childbirth Class. But Tara distinctly remembered her saying she was due a couple of weeks after herself and here she was still pregnant . . . and she didn't look all that over term either.
"Here, let me get that for you," she replied reaching down quickly and retreiving the utensil. "You're Miranda MacKinnon, aren't you?"
"I remember you. You're Ryan's friend," Miranda smiled. "He talks about you all the time. You two are really close friends."
"Yes, we are," she replied. "Are you all right?"
"Well, I keep having Braxton Hicks contractions," she sighed. "They keep getting so strong though! The last one really hurt!"
Nathan had been listening to the two women talk, but stood when he heard that they were getting stronger. He walked over and knelt down on one knee, "Hi. I'm Dr. Fletcher, a friend of Tara's. Are these Braxton and Hicks contractions getting closer together? As well as stronger?"
Miranda was suddenly a bit flustered. "Well, I, uh . . . I don't know . . . I mean, I guess . . . I haven't been timing them or anything, but they seem to be getting closer together. Every . . . I don't know . . . five-ten minutes?" she said, but then she leaned forward. "Only this one isn't waiting the whole five!" she replied. She began to breath out her discomfort when all of a sudden the floor beneath the chair began getting wet. "Oh my God!" she said, "My water just broke!"
"It's all right," Tara soothed. "Everything will be fine."
"You don't understand! Ryan! He's not here! He's out on Patrol!!" she said.
Dr. Fletcher stood and helped Miranda to stand after the contraction, he looked to Tara and said, "Take Zoe and meet us at sickbay...you can be her labor coach in place of Ryan." He tapped his combadge, and ordered, "2 for emergecny transport to sickbay." An instant later they winked out of Harry's and into sickbay.
Instantly one of the other medical staff took her other arm and together they got her to a biobed where Dr. Fletcher ran a scan while the other staff made her comfortable. After a minute he was satisfied with her and the babies condition. he moved up and took her hand as she breathed through yet another contraction. "Do you think Ryan would like us to record the whole process?"
Miranda nodded. "Yes, I think he'd like that," she swallowed with tears in her eyes thinking of having to do this without Ryan by her side.
"Sector 0529 clear," Ryan reported as he and Lieutenant West secured yet another area of empty space in the vicinity of New Canada. The two of them were flying combat air patrol in the system to screen incoming refugee ships from the Nausicaan worlds and two other minor systems the Mullurans had seized over the past few weeks. They'd been out for five hours and encountered one Nausicaan freighter carrying refugees. In all, it was a boring day. Ryan ached to do something more stimulating.
[Copy that. Moving to Sector 0530,] West replied.
Ryan entered the coordinates into his fighter's navigation computer as the two vectored into the next sector. Again, long range scans indicated nothing...but they would fly a sweep pattern, just to make sure.
[Chief MacLeod, come in,] came the voice of Captain Morgan Bicardi over the comm.
"This is MacLeod. What can do for you, Captain?"
[I'm sending Lt. Vansen out to relieve you. You're needed back at the station as soon as Vansen arrives--best possible speed!]
"My God! Is something happening?"
[Something is, indeed, happening. Miranda's having the baby--she's asking for you!]
Ryan could barely contain himself as he waited for Shannon Vansen to arrive at his position. Soon, her Hammerhead vectored in with afterburners at Warp 20. [I've got your back, Cowboy! Get back to the station!] she said. Her smile was very much evident in her voice.
"Roger that," Ryan said as he engaged his own afterburners. In only a matter of minutes he made the trip from the New Canada Oort Cloud to New Canada itself. As he waited for docking clearance, he began completing his post-flight checklist.
Ryan set his fighter down and Bicardi met him at the landing pad. "I'll check the plane back in. Get to Sickbay!" Bicardi told him. Without missing a beat, he rushed to Sickbay still in his flight gear.
Nathan scanned Miranda's womb once more. The tricorder beeped an alarm. "This is strange...computer, identify the source of the anomalous readings."
<The readings are consistent with Kapsala Syndrome.>
Nathan sighed. Kapsala Syndrome was a disease caused by a virus native to the New Canada system. It was more common among beings such as Vulcans and Betazoids with a longer gestation period than humans, but human cases were observed in approximately every hundred thousand births. The virus slowed the development of the fetus in the womb; depending upon when exposure to the virus took place, the development of the infant would be stunted. A cure was possible but only with extensive medical intervention.
Fortunately, Miranda's baby had been exposed sometime in the middle of the third trimester so no critical systems had been affected, but the baby's growth rate would be slow without intervention--the sooner, the better. "Computer, replicate 5 cc's of bandarine chloride," Nathan ordered. A hypospray appeared in the replicator, which a nurse promptly handed to him. He would have to administer the hypo as soon as the baby's cord was cut in order to defeat the virus.
Ryan rushed into the birthing room, flight helmet still in hand as he approached Miranda. He discarded his helmet and gloves as he took her hand. "I'm here for you, hon! Just hang in there!"
He was trying to think of anything he could do to help her, the excitement of the moment overwhelming most of what he'd learned in the childbirth classes.
"I think you need to take a moment to collect yourself, " Tara smiled at him from Miranda's oposite side. "She's been doing quite well, hasn't she, Nathan- uh, Dr. Fletcher," she ammended with a soft laugh at herself.
Ryan took a deep breath. "Okay, that's better," he said, squeezing Miranda's hand. Together they commenced the breathing exercise.
"She's doing wonderfully." He timed another contraction from where he stood. "That's right, Ryan, just keep doing the breathing exercises."
"Without the medication for the pain though, I don't think I could do this," Miranda replied as she recovered from the contraction.
"Oh, nature would have had you had that baby one way or another," Tara laughed. "Let's just be thankful Sickbay is easily reached!"
"I'm just glad I was able to reach you!" Ryan said. "I was clear out at the edge of the system when I got word!"
Dr. fletcher did a manual exam and announced, "She's fully dialated and effaced."
"Now the fun begins!" Tara replied. "Remember this with Zoe?" she asked Ryan.
"How could I forget?" Ryan thought as he recalled that night almost 2 months ago when Zoe was born...and how he and Jayson had all but raced each other to Sickbay to be there for the birth.
"Next contraction I want you to Push!" Dr Fletcher said.
As the contraction hit, Miranda began pushing as Tara and Ryan both counted out to ten for her. As they reached ten, she took a breath and pushed again before the contraction ran its course.
Miranda smiled. "The baby has lots of hair?" she laughed for a moment with joy at the thought of finally seeing her baby and being able to hold him or her.
Ryan moved into position as the nurse handed him a laser scalpel and instructed him in its use to cut the cord. Also in position was the hypospray Nathan had prepared earlier.
With the final contraction the baby slid free and Nathan layed (it) on a sterile towel on mirandas abdomen and applied the clamps and handed the sissors to Ryan.
Ryan deftly cut the cord as the baby screamed with her first full breath of air. Nathan applied the hypospray to the baby's thigh and with an audible hiss. The drug would neutralize the virus in the baby's body.
"My baby . . . My baby . . ." Miranda said as she looked at the doctor and at Ryan. "Is everything all right?"
"She looks just fine to me!" Ryan said.
"She?" Miranda smiled. "It's a little girl?" As their eyes met, she replied. "We have a little girl?"
"I believe that's up to the doctor to make that call, but I don't think the plumbing has changed since the last time I checked," Ryan laughed.
"She, is a beautiful baby. I am going to do some charting, let me know if you need something. A couple of nurses will be by to check out the baby and help clean up mom. In the mean time...count the fingers and toes."
Ryan, with visible delight, counted the little one's fingers and toes as a nurse cleaned the baby. "Yep, they're all there! See for yourself!" he said as the nurse set the baby in Miranda's arms.
"Oh, she's beautiful!" Miranda cried as she touched the dark hair on the top her daughter's head and gazed into her dark blue eyes that were sure to change color in time. She tenderly kissed each hand and held the infant close.
"Its about time you got here!" she laughed. "We've been waiting a long time for you, little one!"
"Quite a long time," chimed in Tara as she gazed at the newborn. "Ryan, you are a very luck man . . ." She went to him and kissed his cheek. "Miranda, congratulations, she's adorable!"
"Now, what are we going to name this little princess?" Ryan asked. "Given how long she took her to make up her mind about getting here, Caprice sounds good!"
Miranda laughed. "It would be appropriate! But then . . . whose last name should we give her?" Though they had never talked about it, their arrangement had never been that he would take on being the father of her child and yet that's exactly what he'd done. She didn't want to place any unfair demands on him. "I don't want to push you into anything. I want you to know that . . . Its just that . . . we never talked about it and . . ." she stopped talking and gazed down at the infant who was already nodding off after her recent ordeal.
"You know, where I'm from sometimes people use both last names with a hyphen between them," Ryan said, just tossing out an idea. "As for me being pushed into anything, well, I've never been pushed anywhere I didn't want to go all along..." he said with a smile. "You make the call."
"MacLeod . . ." she said almost shyly. "I'll know she'll have the best daddy in the galaxy. How about the name Caprice Tara MacLeod?"
Ryan blushed with pride and modesty. "Sounds good to me!" he said. Nathan handed them a PADD with Caprice's birth certificate as entered into the Federation records on it.
"I guess this makes it official," Miranda said as she gazed at Ryan with a gently smile.
Caprice slept gently against her mother's bosom. Ryan was almost overcome with joy and astonishment. He'd found the very thing he'd always wanted--after having come centuries and an entire universe to a place he'd never expected.
Suddenly, something surprising happened. Maybe it was the moment . . . But he leaned over and she tilted her face toward him and tenderly, he took her lips in a kiss. The nurses watching smiled and went about their business.