Chapter 45 Birth of a Prince

Nanobots swarmed to form a giant mining ship, and left towards the gas giant. All of the debris that had been protecting the planet from the massive radiation from the sun was gone, transformed into the swarm. All of the hard drives from the various ships were brought to their holding bay and stored until Dustin could look at them in more depth.

"Come on Granny, you told me countless stories of the Quog. You just need to enter the math algorithms and the nanobot thinkers will do the rest."

She stared at him, as if she was expecting him to make a joke of this, but he stared right back, letting her know he was perfectly serious.

"You've finally grown up," she grumbled, sitting down. "What happened? Have a kid or something?"

As she raised her hands to start typing, he gave a jerk. She was right! He had a kid! She saw the jerk and raised an eyebrow.

"Just born, a healthy baby boy," he said with a smile.

Her jaw dropped. Turning to look at the screen in front of her for a moment, she grew serious and started typing furiously. Dustin couldn't keep up, there were too many digits flying across the screen.

Glancing outside, he watched the thinker swarm start to grow as more thinker bots were created to handle the workload. Before she was done, the swarm had grown to the size of the ship they were in. Sitting back, Granny wiped the sheen of sweat from her brow, then jumped up.

"I'm going to see this little bundle of life!" And she was gone.

Sitting down, Dustin started to program the nanobots so they would know what they needed to do. They needed to figure out how big of a jump gate they would need to make, based on the size of the planet and the math that Granny just gave them.

XxxxX

Olivia slid off the medical bed as soon as the robot told her she could. This place was kind of impressive, but she didn't expect anything less when Dustin was involved. She couldn't believe he had agreed to save the planet that fast, but she was glad he had. Holding the sleeping baby to her, she moved slowly over to a chair and gently sat down.

Jake seemed to be sleeping peacefully, as the robot had him stable and was trying to do what it could surgically to fix the damage. She glanced at his monitor and sighed in relief. He had been so close to death; she was sure he would have died had Dustin not arrived when he did.

The other three forms that were sleeping on beds puzzled her, but she would ask Dustin about them later. Had he taken this prince/king crap to heart? She secretly hoped so. There was something about him that made her believe he was capable of just about anything.

Looking down at the tiny face, she decided the hormones were probably affecting her.

The door opened, and she looked up, expecting to see Dustin, but instead a small green monster bounded into the room, spied her and bared its teeth.

Gasping in horror, she jumped to her feet, and dashed over to Jake.

Granny paused in confusion, before understanding bloomed in her eyes.

"Olivia, don't freak out, it's only me, Granny!"

"What the fuck!?" she growled, as the baby woke and started screaming again.

"Dustin said you had forgotten me, but you're not even the original." She shook her head and stopped approaching her.

"They cloned you girl. If you let me, I can try and cure some of the weakness you're feeling. I'm impressed you were able to carry the baby to term."

"What, who…there is no way in hell I am letting you get your grubby hands on me!" she gasped as pain flared in her abdomen.

(YOU HAVE CAUSED DAMAGE. THERE IS TOO MUCH INTERFERENCE TO SAFELY INITIATE AN EVOLUTION. MEDICAL ATTENTION IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.)

Panting in pain, she stumbled over to the bed she had crawled out of just a few moments before, and managed to fall into it. Granny was there to catch the baby as it slipped from her grasp. Holding him in one hand, she punched the button on the medic bot to initiate it to start work on her.

"You've torn on the inside and are bleeding internally," Granny said, reading the scan results.

Olivia couldn't say anything around the pain. This was worse than the actual birth. What the hell did she do?

"You are weakened from the pregnancy. Your spirit is too weak to heal yourself properly. If you don't let me heal you some, you will die," whispered Granny, looking down at the baby as she finished. "This little prince needs a mother to coddle him and teach him to kill his enemies. Don't take her away, just because you don't remember me."

Olivia relaxed as the medic bot injected her with a pain reliever. Her mind cleared for a moment before she started to get drowsy. The feeling that if she fell asleep, she would die, overwhelmed her. She knew that if she didn't agree, she would die.

"Please, don't let me die, again," she whispered as her mind started to get fuzzy on the edges.

Granny set the baby down on the ground and stepped up next to her. Placing her hand gently on the side of her head, she closed her eyes and focused on what she was doing. The young prince couldn't focus well enough on the scene before him, but if he had, he would have witnessed a strange sight.

Above Olivia, a white misty form began to appear. There were rips and tears throughout the form, as if it had been in a great fight with some beast with large claws. Granny waved her hands over the form, until she came to a tear, and gently pushed the edges together. Some of the tears refused to close, but enough of them did, that Olivia's breathing calmed and her monitor started to register a normal reading.

XxxxX

"The planet will fly right through the jump ring, as it travels on its normal path around the sun. It will appear in the correct spot, in orbit around the new sun. As soon as the planet travels through, the gate will close and the nanobots will be pulled through the gate, spewing into the system after the planet, where I will be able to collect them for whatever needs I have.

"The destruction of this sun will hide the missing planet and whatever parts of the jump ring that don't get pulled through."

Nodding to himself, he stood up to go check on Granny and Olivia. She hadn't met Granny officially, and he hoped Granny hadn't slapped her to bring her memories back. She probably wouldn't appreciate that.