Page 61 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
A twitch in my gut when I bend too fast. A wave of heat under my skin after too little effort. The taste of ration coffee turning sour on my tongue.
Easy enough to ignore, at first.
Stress makes people twitchy. Malnutrition dulls the senses. Prolonged exposure to recycled air and too many sleepless nights will twist your stomach into knots. I’ve been under pressure before—this isn’t new. I can rationalize anything if I squint hard enough.
But then I vomit mid-shift. No warning. No time. One second I’m checking data logs, the next I’m doubled over behind the console with my hair in one hand and bile in the other. The nausea claws through me like a blunt instrument, leaving nothing but sweat and tremors in its wake.
That one’s harder to explain away.
Kalev doesn’t notice.
He’s neck-deep in uplink recon, muttering to himself about encryption pulses and signal ghosts. His shoulders are tight, face carved from focus and caffeine, and I don’t say a damn thing.
I wipe my mouth, rinse with iodine, and log the time like it’s just another entry in the surveillance ledger.
I, however, can’t ignore what’s happening. I head to a clinic off the beaten path I hope will be discrete.
The medbay stinks of disinfectant and damp stone. Its walls are older than the war, reinforced with a hybrid alloy that hums faintly beneath my boots. It’s buried three sublevels beneath the living quarters, wedged beside the old coolant reservoir like an afterthought.
Nobody likes going down here. Too many bad memories. Too many ghosts.
I use the override code.
The lights flicker once before stabilizing, humming low overhead. One long strip of photonic glow bathes the room in artificial white. Cold. Impersonal. The kind of lighting that makes you feel like a lab rat, even if you’re not.
The chair is metal and unwelcoming.
I sit anyway.
I pull up the diagnostic interface and bypass standard protocol. Manual scan. No alerts sent. No names logged. Just me and the machine and the rising terror in my throat.
Blood sample. Urine tag. Neural stability check.
The screen pulses blue.
Analyzing…
My breath catches.
Result: Positive. hCG detected. Est. gestation: 4.4 weeks.
My body goes still.
Not even shaking.
Just…still.
The noise of the room fades. Even the drone of the coolant system becomes distant, like I’ve been dropped into a vacuum.
Pregnant.
I’m pregnant.
My hand moves to my stomach, slow, uncertain. There’s no bump. No flutter. Nothing tangible but the data in front of me and the way my heart has started pounding so loud I can feel it in my teeth.
I whisper, “No fucking way.”
But the scan doesn’t lie.
