“... So that just about wraps things up here, sir.” Magenta concluded his report. “Once we’ve got someone to take over baby-duty from Scarlet we’ll be en route back to base.”
Seated at his desk as he listened to the report, White felt his eyebrows creep upwards in unison. Surely that had to be some kind of a verbal slip. “Baby what?” he queried, baffled.
“Ah, baby-duty, sir. Scarlet’s got a newborn baby in his shirt right now, to keep him warm. He can’t do much else at the moment so he volunteered.”
The thought of ‘how on earth...?’ was immediately followed by ‘...why?’, but both thoughts were quickly eclipsed by ‘of course they found a baby. These are my officers – Murphy’s Law is all but their brother-in-arms by this point.’ White set the internal ruminations aside to instead ask: “Captain Magenta, please explain exactly why Captain Scarlet has a baby in his shirt. Pertinent details only, if you please.”
“Well... you see, sir...”
0o0o0
“Ochre! We’re pinned down!” Scarlet shouted into his handheld communicator as he crouched protectively in front of their charge. “Magenta, door, now please!” More gunfire cracked through the air, drilling holes into the cinderblock wall of the maze of white-painted halls that threaded the service area of the Fogo Island Inn, located on the island of the same name in Canada. The hotel had grown significantly from the original 29-room building made in a modernistic, fishing-hut-on-stilts style. It now boasted sixty rooms across four interconnected buildings, linked both above and below ground level.
Isolated and remote, Fogo Island Inn had been the perfect venue for delegates from governments across the world, gathered in a top secret conference to answer the threat of a potential new hole in the ozone layer, centred over the North Pole.
Key word – ‘had’.
A half-dozen Mysteron replicants bursting into the conference room just before dinner with guns blazing tended to ruin descriptions such as ‘perfect’, ‘secret’ and ‘secure’.
“Working on it!” Magenta grunted out the words around the handle of the screwdriver he had clenched between his teeth as he pulled the guts out of the keypad beside the door blocking their access to the small underground car park. They had a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle there; if they could get to it they’d be able to escape the Mysteron replicants that had infiltrated the hotel and get to safety.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” Scarlet threw the question over his shoulder to the middle-aged woman huddled behind him, waiting for a lull in the gunfire before leaning around the corner and firing back a few shots of his own.
“I’m... I’m fine,” Erica Huse nodded, biting her lip but putting a brave face on things. Currently the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry for the Canadian government, she was widely tipped to be the next Prime Minister in the upcoming elections. After spending two days in her company, the three Spectrum officers were in agreement with that assessment. A canny political operator, fiercely intelligent and driven, but balanced with a genuine warmth and compassion, they could all see why the Mysterons had targeted her out of all the other delegates. “What about the others?” she demanded.
“Ochre and the security teams got them out.” Scarlet leaned around the corner long enough to fire off half a dozen shots, then dug a new clip out of the pocket of his black civilian windbreaker. He, Magenta and Ochre had been obliged to change into hastily organised civvies by the British representative, Lord Shellington, shortly after they arrived. Shellington was a man who prioritised an orderly, peaceful life, free of tumult, clamour and the trappings of anything that might threaten a disruption to his serenity. He claimed that he didn’t want to panic the delegates nor fuel suspicions that Spectrum wasbeing used to overawe and intimidate anyone into agreeing to any pacts drawn up at the conference, and he had enough clout to enforce his ‘request’. Privately, the captains had suspicions about exactly where this insistence of his had come from, but that was neither here nor there right now.
“I’m gonna officially request we get issued bullet-proof civvies,” Magenta grunted as he yanked out a wire, used the screwdriver to pry something loose and rearranged a connection. “I’m really missing that Kevlar right now.”
“Agreed.” Scarlet punctuated his statement with another quick round of bullets, hearing his efforts be rewarded by a sharp yelp.
But it was the muffled cry of pain from Erica that made both men glance towards her in concern. White faced and wide-eyed with surprise, she was holding her lower abdomen with both hands and from underneath her long, dark skirt, there was a puddle of pink-tinged fluid curling across the grey concrete floor.
Adding these specific events to the wording of the Mysteron threat, Scarlet carefully asked, “Ms Huse... are you pregnant?”, briefly meeting Magenta’s eyes with a mutual expression best described as ‘oh... oh shit’.
“No!” Erica shook her head. “I mean, look at me!” She rubbed her hands over her belly to illustrate and inhaled sharply as another wave of pain hit. Though her abdomen wasn’t flat, she didn’t look pregnant at all, even with the thick knitted jumper she wore.
“Pain from the back going around to the front?”
“Yes!”
“How long?”
“I’m not sure...” She broke off to gasp again. “At... at least since lunchtime. I thought it was period cramps.”
“Almost six hours of labour,” was Scarlet’s matter-of-fact response to that. “It makes sense – the threat did talk about ‘the rising star of the ever-powerful house and her progeny’.”
“But I can’t be pregnant!” Erica protested. “I didn’t feel anything!”
“Small baby facing to the back and placenta to the front, it happens.” Scarlet straightened out of his crouch, blue eyes narrowed as he rapidly reassessed their plan of action. “Magenta, we need that door open now.” He thumbed the talk button on his communicator again. “Ochre, any luck getting hold of Cloudbase?”
“Negative, they have to have some sort of localised jamming going on, the only signals we’re getting are point to point,” Ochre reported back. “The security teams are getting the other delegates out of here, I’m trying to get into the garage but the door is sealed.”
“We’ll take care of that, wait for us nearby and we’ll pick you up.”
“S.I.G. I’ll be at the fishing charter sign.”
“Gotcha!” Magenta grunted in triumph, pressed ‘1234’ on the keypad and the door obediently slid open. “Ms Huse, time to go!” Pat ordered, already moving to sweep through the garage and make sure the coast was clear while Erica carefully got to her feet and moved forward as quickly as she could, one hand held to her side as if she was fending off a nasty runner’s stitch.
“I’ll cover you!” Scarlet quickly fired around the corner again and changed out to his final clip. Extracting a VIP under fire was something they extensively trained for and they knew their roles by heart. Magenta would clear the way and get the Mysteron gun out from the secure locker in the SPV, while he’d stay behind to keep the enemy forces pinned for as long as he could until retreating to the armoured vehicle.
By some stroke of luck, the garage was clear and Magena had the side door open in a trice. He helped Erica up and inside, directing her to the front-facing jump seat between the two rear-facing main seats. “Scarlet! Move it!” he ordered into his communicator with one hand as he pulled out the long-barreled electron gun with the other, moving to stand inside the SPV and using the open door as cover.
“S.I.G.”
He glimpsed Scarlet duck around the doorframe at a low crouch, turn and fire at someone behind him, then make a dash across the short open space between him and the cover afforded by a clutch of parked cars. At the same moment, a nearby utility door crashed open and a figure in a dark uniform raised a pistol at the fleeing figure. The series of shots echoed loudly as he fired wildly.
“Ah!” Just shy of cover, Scarlet cried out and half-fell, one hand going to his left leg, then he forced himself back up and staggered towards the SPV. Magenta had the electron gun trained on the sniper in a heartbeat and took out the threat before the replicant could make a second attempt.
From his post in the SPV, Magenta could see the rapidly darkening patch on Scarlet’s thigh where a bullet had clipped him. He glanced at Erica in the front-facing passenger seat and silently cursed at yet another thing thrown into the mix but glad that it hadn’t been as bad as it could have been. “Scarlet! Hurry!” Magenta waved him towards the powder blue vehicle.
Scarlet stumbled over and Magenta grabbed his belt to ungracefully hoist him inside. Once Paul had dragged himself out of the way and into the centre aisle, Magenta dumped the Mysteron gun in a convenient corner, closed the door and hit the ignition as soon as his rump was planted in the driver’s seat, the engine coming to life with a throaty growl. “We’re outta here, hold on!” Magenta grinned tightly despite the situation, putting the SPV into gear and pointing the reinforced nose at the roller door that protected the vehicles from the sharp, snow-laden December winds that were shrieking around the building. ‘I love my job’ was the thought as he put his foot down on the accelerator. This part was always fun.
The thin metal of the garage door was no match for the SPV and they burst out into the purpling night. Scarlet dragged himself back towards the medical kit, leaving a smear of blood on the floor. He had a compression bandage out in moments and was tying it into place when Magenta stomped on the brakes beside an iced-over sign and hit the button to open the other door. Everyone flinched at the blast of icy air and Ochre wasted no time getting into the lowered seat and buckling himself in. “Thanks. Update?” he asked through chattering teeth as the door shut and sealed out the night.
“Scarlet’s hurt, Minister Huse is in labour,” wass the quick response from Magenta as he revved up and took them out of there. In the rear view he could see several figures pour out of the main entrance and aim at them, but the bullets pinged harmlessly off the SPV’s outer shell.
“Wait, what? How long until the baby arrives?” Ochre asked, looking from her face to her belly and back again with clear worry.
“How am I supposed to know?!” Erica snapped back, understandably short tempered in her distress. “But the contractions are getting closer together.”
“At some point soon then,” Scarlet cut in as he finished securing the end of the bandage. “I’ve got a baby bag in my first aid kit.” He nodded to his red backpack, stashed with the others in the back of the SPV.
“We can’t deliver a baby in an SPV!” Magenta protested. “There’s no room!”
“Ochre, the map! Do you see any big buildings like a workshop?” Scarlet demanded, craning his neck to see the satellite view that Ochre was pulling up on his screen. “The snow should cover our tracks but we’ll need somewhere to hide the SPV; once they get into vehicles, they’ll be looking for us.”
“I’ve found something, I think it’s a barn or big stable, looks like it’s far enough away that it should take us outside of any local jamming,” Ochre reported as he plotted the route they should take. “Mags, left at the intersection.”
“Got it.”
The narrow roads were deserted as they charged through the night, the bitter cold and driving wind keeping anyone with a grain of sense indoors and tucked up warm as they followed the coastal road that wrapped around Joe Batt’s Arm. Just past the halfway point, Magenta swung right and took them deep into the island’s interior. Another right turn and they were squeezing up a narrow gravel driveway, deeply rutted and pot-holed. The large barn stood on its own on a turning off the driveway, but the line of power poles that led up to it were a hopeful indication of light and warmth.
Ochre jumped out of the SPV to open the large rolling door and let them in, then he dragged the door shut as soon as the vehicle was inside and quickly swept through the interior of the warm, musty-smelling barn. The only occupants were a dozen-odd chickens in a hutch that clucked and squawked at the disruption, but they soon settled down again. There was a kitchenette towards the back of the barn and in a cramped office space next to it he found a battered space heater that he hauled out and plugged in to provide some additional heat. Some old but clean-smelling towels went onto the lino floor of the kitchenette and then he was hurrying back to the SPV where Magenta had his hands full getting a groaning Ms Huse out of the vehicle and trying to juggle his and Scarlet’s backpacks and the medical bag at the same time.
“Take the bags, I’ve got her, then come back for Scarlet, he says she’s almost fully dilated. It’s going quickly, he thinks it’s because she’s under stress,” Magenta said as he passed the armload of bags over. “Still no dice with reaching Cloudbase, but I had a play with the frequencies and managed to get through to Spectrum Canada; their team is almost at the island already – Cloudbase called them as soon as they realised they’d lost contact with us – and they’ve alerted the local air ambulance, there’s a helicopter en route.”
“Fantastic, something going right.” Ochre took the bags, dumped them all within easy grabbing range and dashed across to where Scarlet had already scooted himself to the open door. “Give me your arm, Scarlet.” He turned and ducked so Scarlet’s arm was around his shoulders and the other officer could lower himself down onto his good leg.
“Thanks.” Paul was thin-lipped as he moved, obviously in pain, but the dressing was holding and it didn’t look like it had soaked up much more blood – he was on the mend.
“How the hell do you know about all this anyway?” Ochre demanded as he helped Scarlet limp over. He already knew Scarlet had the most medical training out of all of them – Special Ops, he needed it – but not only knowing about labour and delivery but also having supplies for it was a surprise.
“I got caught out once, and once only. I’ll tell you about it later,” Scarlet explained with a kind of grim humour as he shook off Ochre’s helping hands and found a place to sit next to Erica and Magenta, using the bench to carefully lower himself down and leaning against the cheap veneer cabinet for support. “Ochre, I can’t crouch, you’ll have to catch the baby. Ms Huse, I’ll coach you. Magenta, watch the perimeter and keep an eye out for that helicopter.” He rattled off the orders, then turned his attention to their charge. “Ms Huse, it’s okay,” he reassured her, “even if you don’t know what to do, your body does and we’re going to be guided by that.”
As Ochre donned gloves and opened up the medical kit, he half wondered if that last instruction was directed at him too – their training hadn’t covered this!
The next hour was something of a blur for Rick as he put all his focus onto helping deliver the baby, relaying what he was seeing to Paul and hanging onto the instructions issued in response like they were a lifeline. Finally the baby slid free, Ochre managing to hold onto it despite how unexpectedly slippery it was and the ingrained instinct to be gentle with the tiny infant. He placed the baby onto the stunned new mother’s chest and draped someone’s undershirt over them both. “Congrats, Ms Huse, you’ve got a little boy,” he told her as he carefully arranged the undershirt to make sure it covered the pale fuzz that crowned the baby’s head.
“A boy?” Wan, weak, and looking more than a little shellshocked, Erica nevertheless cradled her newborn close, looking at him in wonderment.
Scarlet’s radio crackled, then Magenta’s voice came on the air. “Aircraft inbound!”
The sound of a helicopter’s blades slicing the air had never sounded sweeter, followed shortly by Magenta’s radioed confirmation that the occupants had been cleared by covert snaps with the C-38.
Then the side door to the barn opened and Magenta was escorting three people in bright red jumpsuits and white helmets, air ambulance logos down their arms and legs, and carrying in bags and a stretcher. Ochre gladly relinquished his post to the experts who did their thing – cutting the cord, collecting the afterbirth and making sure the baby was responding well.
“Well, all looks good, but there’s a couple of tears that need stitching,” the lead paramedic announced, then frowned. “We can do that in the helicopter – it’ll be more hygienic – but it’s a small space. We don’t have room to have the baby capsule out and do the stitching at the same time.”
“I can keep the baby warm while you take Ms Huse to the helicopter,” Scarlet volunteered, gesturing at his leg as he continued, “I’m not going anywhere, and someone can bring the capsule here when you’re ready.”
“Okay, thanks, sir. Ma’am, is this plan okay with you?” the paramedic asked. It was only when he got Erica’s nod that he reached out and carefully took the tiny bundle from her. Scarlet had his jacket and shirt open in short order and tucked the fabric around the newborn as soon as he was placed on his bare chest for the skin-to-skin warming that the infant needed. Erica was loaded onto the stretcher shortly afterwards and whisked out to the helicopter.
Ochre let out an explosive sigh as soon as the door shut behind them, scraping the used supplies off the floor and into a heap to scoop into the biohazard bag that Magenta held open for him. “Well. That was something.”
“You can say that again,” Magenta chuckled tiredly as he tied off the first bag, dumped it off to the side and grabbed a second one for the last scraps of rubbish.
They worked in silence for a moment, then as Ochre finished wiping the worst of the mess off the floor and dumped the rag he’d found and his gloves into the bag, something seemed to occur to him and he crooked a grin at the other two as he asked, “Hey, you know what? It’s December and we’re in a barn with a newborn baby boy. If we stretch it, I suppose Mags would count so that makes for ‘Three Wise Men’, and the SPV makes for a good donkey. We just made our own nativity.”
“Huh.” Paul turned that over in his head and nodded. “It’s certainly close enough,” he commented over Pat’s outraged ‘Hey!’ when Rick’s jibe registered. The baby chose that moment to let out a little squawk and all of Paul’s attention immediately went to gently rubbing his back and making the soothing noises that they’d all seen parents using at some point in the hopes it would settle the little one back down.
Wary of being caught with a crying baby and not having the training to deal with such a thing, the other two removed themselves from the immediate vicinity, quite glad to leave baby minding to Paul. Once at a safe distance, they then looked at each other. “So... who’s going to update the Old Man?” Pat asked, hoping that Rick would volunteer.
“I caught the baby, so you call the boss,” Rick immediately answered. “Try get us a pick up before those medics think to check Scarlet’s leg.”
“...that’s fair.” And it was, there really wasn’t any way he could argue with that logic. He squared his shoulders and fished his communicator out of his jacket pocket, mentally drafting how on earth he was going to report all of this. “Captain Magenta to Cloudbase...”
0o0o0
A day later, the three officers sat before Colonel White’s desk as they delivered their final report.
White listened to them carefully, fingers steepled before his face as was his usual habit. “Good work, gentlemen, very good work,” he announced, nodding as he sat back in his chair. “Your recommendations on suitable civilian-style clothing and extra training for frontline officers are very valid ones. Scarlet, as the one with the most experience in in-the-field emergency delivery you’ll liaise with Fawn about developing appropriate materials.”
“Yes, sir.” Scarlet nodded – he’d expected this might happen and was looking forward to it. Working with Fawn and the medical team, instead of being worked on by Fawn and the medical team, made for a nice change.
“I received a message from Minister Huse this morning.” White picked up a buff-coloured folder from the collection on his desk and handed a photo to each of them. Obviously taken in a hospital, it showed Ms Huse sitting up in bed, a grinning man (revealed by the caption as her husband Jacob) perched on the edge of the bed beside her and their baby in her arms, dressed in a pale green onesie with a matching knitted cap on his head. “I’ll have the full letter forwarded to you, but I wanted to highlight this section to you.” White cleared his throat, picked up the sheet of paper and began to read. “I cannot say it enough, thank you to Captains Magenta, Ochre and Scarlet. The three of you not only saved my life, but you helped me through a quite frankly terrifying experience and welcomed our son into the world. Jacob and I wanted to honour all of you with what you did for us, so we have given our son the name William Taner Huse. William for the ‘strong protectors’ and Taner meaning ‘dawn man’, since your code colours are so often part of the dawn sky. Once again, our deepest thanks to you all.”
The colonel lowered the sheet of paper and surveyed his officer – to a man they looked pleased as punch and it was very well deserved in his opinion. “Very good work, gentlemen. You are dismissed.”