Page 40 of Doom

“How long has this been going on?” Maria asked Victoria, pushing me aside to prick her finger with a stylus.

“Just this morning. I had some tea, and it soothed it a bit. Some clear broth should go down well,” Victoria said.

I muttered that salty, hot liquid did not qualify as food, then I glanced at Maria, hoping she’d agree with me. But she had no time for me. Lips parted in shock, she stared at the display of the stylus.

“What?” I asked, worry coming back at me with a vengeance.

She didn’t respond but removed the head of the stylus, replacing it with another stinger before taking a second blood sample from my mate. I was about to lose my shit as Maria stared at the results of the analysis with the same stunned expression. Then, without a word, she presented the display to my woman. Victoria covered her mouth with her palm, her eyes widening before misting.

She looked at me with an expression I couldn’t define. Shifting my vision, I looked at her aura. It burst into a mesmerizing rainbow of joy.

“My Red?” I asked, not daring to hope.

“Congratulations to us,” she whispered through tears of joy.

Chapter 14

Victoria

The news of my pregnancy spread like wildfire. After two long years, we’d given up hope. The announcement was celebrated throughout the allied planets. As much as I rejoiced, life also became pretty much an endless whirlwind of aggravation. You’d think I had suddenly turned into a sand statue that would crumble at the first touch or gust of wind.

Every single medical expert, be they alien or human, wanted to have a look at my womb to make sure all was well, each spewing a never-ending string of recommendations to ensure a safe gestation. I just nodded politely then ignored them. Although my child was healthy, that he possessed a single heartbeat instead of two like his father raised some concerns that he might not be a full Warrior after all. There would be plenty of time to worry about that later. For now, I just wanted to get him to term in the best possible conditions.

Naturally, I was banned from anything that even remotely resembled a lab or a medical ward to avoid the slightest risk of exposure to any bacteria or germ that could harm the baby.

That didn’t make me idle.

After two years with tens of thousands of humans becoming psychics with no negative side effects and no freaky superpowers that could become security threats, a worldwide poll was held about making it compulsory for Earth’s entire population. It was approved with an overwhelming majority, bordering unanimity. As studies had already been performed to ensure the enzyme wouldn’t adversely affect Earth’s flora and fauna, it was therefore added to our water and food so that the entire population would be exposed, even before birth.

Therefore, for the duration of my pregnancy, I worked alongside Dr. Shivani, Dr. Landon, Leonard, and many others to draft the first outline of the PTP: the Psychic Training Program. While everyone under thirty exposed to the enzyme would develop psychic abilities, entering the PTP would be akin to trying out the Navy Seals training program where many aspired, few dared, but only the finest succeeded.

Training centers would be established in all major cities around the world. However, enrollment would be on a voluntary basis, as those who graduated from the program would leave Earth in order to work at one of the Coalition’s outposts or directly on Khepri with the Vanguard for the most powerful psychics.

For this reason, the program would not only include extrasensory perception development, but also mandatory combat and weapons training, spacecraft and hovercraft piloting, galactic politics and history, xenobiology and culture, and learning to speak and write Universal—the common galactic language—to facilitate communication between species.

Technically speaking, the war was over, most of the Kryptid fleet having left. However, the straggling units abandoned by General Khutu and the Drone Swarms which had scattered far and wide to lay more eggs, all continued to wreak havoc everywhere they could.

As much as he loved to battle and crush bugs, going to the front became sheer agony for Doom. Three months into my pregnancy, he increasingly hated being away from me and our unborn child. I hated it as well, but my man took it to the next level, psychically poking me at all hours of the day. Although distracting, it was cute. Rather than allowing it to irritate me, I decided to make a game out of it and try to anticipate when the next one would occur.

Even now that he was on board The Avenger for the next forty-eight hours before his next mission, he’d just poked me again, to Anita’s amusement. While she found it adorable, Dr. Landon—or Peter as I now called him—thought it was silly. He was one of those men who thought it wasn’t virile to show too much emotion, caring, or sensitivity. What did he know?

Speaking of men, we were caught in a major debate about their eligibility to the PTP. As they didn’t develop a psychic vessel, they couldn’t become Soulcatchers. Furthermore, since male-to-male communications between Xian Warriors and psychic males of any species—including humans—were extremely slow and limited in range, they couldn’t work as Operators either. It therefore didn’t make sense to include them in the program. But that was inevitably bound to cause some backlash.

“What if we—”

A psychic flutter at the edge of my consciousness interrupted me. There was something odd about it. I didn’t recognize the signature. It was timid, tentative, and somewhat clumsy. I froze, focused, waiting to see if the person would contact me again.

Nothing.

“Something wrong?” Anita asked, an intrigued expression on her face.

“Do we have new trainees on board?” I asked.

“No. Why?” Peter answered.

“I don’t know. I just got the weirdest nudge, like from a newbie,” I said, confused. “Oh well, it—”

The nudge came back, this time stronger. I could feel the consciousness attempting to latch on to our connection before it lost its grip and faded away. No coherent thoughts had filtered through, just sensations of comfort, warmth, joy, and intense curiosity: the basic emotions of a young blossoming mind.

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