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“Go ahead, Grodd,” Jagga said. “Hruk and I can protect our mate well enough. You go down there and have some fun.”
Grodd grinned, his tusks glinting. He leaned in and gave Serenity a quick kiss. Then, with a curdling roar, he jumped down into the fray and helped slaughter the remaining nith.
EPILOGUE: SERENITY
Serenity Mendez gasped awake in the darkness. Her hair was damp with perspiration, her skin stippled with sweat.
This time, however, it was not a nightmare that woke her; it was the warm wetness pooling between her thighs, soaking into the fur of her bedding. Serenity’s first thought was that she had peed in her sleep. Wet the bed. God, she hadn’t done that since she was a little girl.
Gradually, however, her sleep-sodden brain put the pieces together, and she realized what had really happened.
Her water had broken…
She was going into labor!
At this realization, a dose of adrenaline surged through Serenity’s body, jolting her awake. She tried to call out to rouse her three sleeping mates, but before she could get the words out of her mouth, an intense contraction gripped her body. The clenching sensation was intense and painful, like a charley horse, but localized inside her swollen abdomen instead of her legs. It robbed Serenity of her voice and her ability to move for several seconds. All she could do was ride it out and wait for the contraction to pass…
Four days had gone by since the battle with the nith. Actually, “battle” was not the right word. It had been a massacre. The invading nith army had been completely wiped out. Not a single one of the creatures had escaped with its life. Meanwhile, the ukkur had not suffered any casualties. None at all.
Nevertheless, the leaders felt the canyon encampment had been compromised, and they had decided it was best to move on to a new location, in case the nith mounted a secondary attack. So, for the past four days, the ukkur warriors and human refugees had been migrating underground, following the network of subterranean tunnels that criss-crossed the planet’s dark underbelly. Their plan was to join forces with another large tribe of ukkur in a different canyon hundreds of miles away. They still had many days of traveling left to go.
Serenity would be glad when the journey was finally over.
Traveling underground like this, it was impossible for her to tell if it was day or night. The ukkur, however, had well-tuned internal clocks, and they made sure to stop once a day so the humans could have several hours to rest.
On this particular night, the tribe had stopped at a spacious circular cavern, the walls of which were honeycombed with smaller cavities. Serenity and her three mates had bedded down in one of these natural rooms.
That’s where Serenity was now, silently enduring her paralyzing contraction.
In the days following the battle, Serenity’s body had undergone some big changes. Just as she had suspected, she had conceived a child. Her three ukkur mates had impregnated her. And because of the extreme virility of their ukkur seed, Serenity’s pregnancy had developed at an accelerated rate. After only one day, she’d begun to show. By the fourth day, she was round as a ripe melon, and Grodd had to carry her—a task the protective ukkur was more than happy to do.
And now here she was, already going into labor.
At last, the paralyzing contraction passed. Her muscles unlocked, and the tension drained out of her. The sense of relief was overwhelming.
But Serenity knew it wouldn’t be long before the next contraction came. She drew a ragged breath and called her mates’ names.
“Hruk…Jagga…Grodd…”
All three warriors were fully awake in an instant. Serenity felt their hands and breath on her in the darkness, supporting her.
“Serenity,” Hruk said. “Are you well, little one?”
She answered using the ukkur language. After the battle with the nith, Serenity had thrown the translator device away. She did not want to rely on it anymore to communicate with her mates. She was determined to learn their language.
“Little ukkur come out,” she said. “Get Alyx quick. Get First Woman.”
At their first meeting, Alyx had told Serenity that she had been a doctor back on Earth. In their subsequent conversations, Serenity had learned that Alyx was not just any doctor—she was an obstetrician, and now her knowledge came in very handy on this planet. There was a new birth in the tribe every day or two.
Another contraction wracked Serenity’s body.
Jagga sprang to his feet and raced out of the room. He was going to get Alyx. Hruk also went out to procure a burning stick from the campfire in the middle of the large central cave. He used this to light a few tallow candles, providing illumination to their little chamber. As for Grodd, he just held Serenity in his arms, silently comforting her as the painful contractions came and went.
A few minutes later, Jagga returned with Alyx.
Serenity’s respect for that woman grew more and more with each passing day. Alyx had just given birth only a few days ago—on the day of the battle, in fact—yet now here she was on her feet and ready to perform her medical duties in the middle of the night. The only signs of weariness were the sleepy bags under the woman’s eyes. But the rest of her was fully awake and alert. Her movements were quick and decisive.
Immediately, Alyx began barking orders like a general, giving Serenity’s ukkur mates various tasks. It was Jagga’s job to procure a basin of cool water, while Hruk was sent to gather some clean strips of cloth and a biting stick.
