Day Nine

Trillinae had earned herself a new Tarasin name.

She was now, "The Death of Trees".

Cussing, she climbed out of the pod and took another pass at pulling broken limbs and leaves off its front end. With the air intake jammed up like this, she couldn't fly very far or get much lift what what little engine power she had in this rust bucket.

Of course, thrust wasn't really the problem. The pod steered like a Corellian corpa, offered almost no visibility and had no working navigation systems, and its landing gear consisted of picking somewhere soft to touch down and praying the damned thing didn't roll too much. She had screaming headache, the pod was looking worse than normal, and she was leaving a trail of deforestation behind her.

Between the shattered tree trunks and the spreading fires, she wasn't accomplishing much beyond adding to her kill totals. At this rate, she'd run out of room on the outside of her makeshift craft for all the deciduous stamps. Not that green paint would last very long with the way she was rampaging through the forest.

It was actually sort of amusing. Even abandoned and alone, she was managing to have a real "impact" on this alien world. It was a lame joke to be sure, but it counted as high comedy right now. Toob didn't have a locatable sense of humor, so she had to depend on herself for amusement.

Still chuckling, she fixed the flaps around the pod's engines again and climbed inside. Each flight, and flight was a generous term for the pathetic hops this little ball of metal and spit kept making, lasted about two minutes and took nearly half an hour to repair. Going at full speed like this, Trill estimated she would reach somewhere useful in say... her baby's 5th birthday. This was beyond pathetic.

At this point, she'd gladly fly a Tug rather than sit behind the control stick of this bowling ball with ailerons. The thought of taking off again was almost enough to make her nauseous. Just the idea of powering the pod up again felt... so....

Before she knew it, Trill was running to the pod's door and emptying a half day's raptor rations into the scorched crater outside. Down on her knees, gasping for breath, she came to the instant conclusion that dinosaur tasted far better the first time one ate it. Ewwww.

A metal hand settled on her shoulder as she heaved again. And again. "What... what's wrong with me, Toob?" she managed to gurgle out between attempts to spit up her own toes.

"Congratulations, Mistress. You are experiencing motion sickness."

There were no words to describe the hate in her eyes as she looked savagely back at her medical droid. "Congratulations?!?" She spit a mouthful of something foul and reached for the canteen Toob offered. "This is NOT a good thing."

"But it is, Mistress. Without proper diagnostic materials, my ability to monitor your pregnancy is limited. Your nausea is a sign that everything is proceeding properly. If you had miscarried or if there were hormonal imbalances, you would not likely be so afflicted."

She narrowed her eyes. It was against her hedonistic nature to believe that anything so nasty could be a good thing, but the droid made sense. Still, maybe the universe could bless her just a little bit less violently in the future? Please?

"Okay, Toob. I'll buy that. Damn tummy grub. Sooner it's out, the better." She groused all the way back to the pilot's chair. "Strap in; we are gonna try that again. And if my parasite wants to survive the next few months, it damn well better let me keep something down. Bloody useless lump of goo."

She said it, but she didn't mean it. Once Trill was sure Toob couldn't see her, she put her hands over her stomach and closed her eyes. Under her breath, she murmured a prayer to whatever out there might hear her.

Trill's life was damn hard right now, but it wasn't just hers any more. No matter what happened, she had to survive. Nothing else mattered. Nothing at all...