Chilla and RedEye made their way through the dark and grimy corridors in the bowels of their mobile fortress Skytomb. RedEye was carrying a metal pot filled with some table scraps while Chilla carried an empty pitcher and a bag filled with bread. Neither was happy to be down on the dungeon levels, but they’d been assigned the chore of slave maintenance. Usually it was given to TugMug or occasionally Alluro to handle, but Luna had changed the schedule that day and sent the two of them out on a Thundrillium scouting mission instead.

Both Chilla and RedEye were eager to get the task over as soon as possible. RedEye never cared for dealing directly with the inferiors and Chilla, now three quarters of the way through the term of her pregnancy and visibly showing her condition, was already feeling the strain that it placed on her body in strength and mobility, though she was loath to admit such. When the two of them opened the heavy metal security doors into the only occupied hallway, they heard loud screams coming from one of the cells. They exchanged annoyed looks. "Oh, what the hell—?" Chilla grumbled. She threw the bag of bread and the pitcher on the workbench.

RedEye focused his superior vision to see which cell the disturbance was coming from. He could see the cell’s four inhabitants, one of whom lay upon the floor with the other three gathered around. "Third cell on the left."

They met at the doorway and peered into the dungeon, which held some warrior maiden slaves they captured several months back. Though generally they didn’t like keeping slaves for a long period of time, they did keep a stock of the naturally strong brutemen and warrior maidens for some of the more mundane and labor-intensive tasks like mining Thundrillium or filling the fuel

bunkers. As long as the total number of slaves was under twenty it wasn’t too much of a hassle to keep them alive, and they’d found in snatching them one or two at a time that no one came hunting for them. The brutemen weren’t bright enough to question one or two disappearances and the new warrior maiden queen Nayda had too much pride to call in the Thundercats for anything other than an all-out raid, and sent her scouts to look for missing maidens instead. Of course, the scouts always came back empty-handed and Nayda had no choice but to assume that those who vanished had perished in an accident of some sort or simply left the tribe. That left the Lunatacs holding their stock of prisoners with the Thundercats none the wiser, and they were pleased to keep it that way. Thundercat interference was not something they wanted to deal with.

"What’s going on in there?" Chilla hissed angrily.

Another scream from the woman on the floor interrupted her. One of the women rushed to the door to block Chilla and RedEye’s view. "She’s sick. She needs to be taken care of. Please, if you have a shred of compassion—"

Chilla answered the woman by icing her throat. The maiden choked and gagged, and fell to the floor wheezing desperately for air. "Compassion is for the weak," the icy Lunatac informed her.

RedEye surveyed the situation as best he could from where he stood. The sick slave, a young redheaded warrior, let out another agonized cry and fell still. The two women beside her anxiously hovered over her, one of them blocking the Lunatacs’ view of what was happening. "We’d better find out what’s going on," RedEye said to Chilla, and undid the latch. He advanced into the cell while Chilla stood by the door on guard. He grabbed the closest of the slaves roughly by the arm. "What is wrong with her?"

"N-n-nothing," the woman stammered. Normally the warrior maidens were braver, but that particular one had been in the Lunatacs "care" for six months now, and her rebellious spirit had been pretty much broken. Before too long, survival took a higher priority than her pride.

RedEye looked at the woman on the floor. The other slave knelt at her feet, holding something in her arms. She was sobbing quietly. "She’s dead, Tarasil. It killed her."

Tarasil, the slave whom RedEye held, paled with horror. "You did this to her," she snarled accusingly. "This is your fault."

Angered, RedEye roughly threw her from his grasp, slamming her against the cell wall. "Watch how you speak to your superiors, human," he said contemptuously. He lumbered to where the fallen slave lay, above the crying woman beside her, and then he heard a second cry. Tinier. More plaintive. Almost like a…

Chilla frowned. "What is that? It sounds like a baby crying."

RedEye pushed the slave aside, and to his shock, saw her cradling a small, blood-covered male infant in her hands. He also saw a lot of blood on the floor and smeared on the skin of the now-dead slave woman. The tiny creature in the slave’s arms continued to cry, and it was then that RedEye’s keen eyesight picked up on two peculiar features of the baby. Its skin was a purplish color, and its head had two small horns and a crescent moon birthmark.

It was one of theirs.

The dark-dwelling Lunatac frowned and extended his hand toward the woman. "Give it to me."

Chilla walked over toward RedEye and gasped when she saw what it was. "The slave had a child?" She frowned. "How is that? We don’t keep male humans. Was she pregnant when we brought her in? Did she breed with one of the brutemen?"

"Worse," RedEye answered. "Look for yourself. It would seem that your condition is catching."

Chilla looked closely at the newborn, and when she saw its features, hissed in disgust. "My gods. I don’t believe this."

RedEye’s eyes glowed with impatience since the woman holding the child still had yet to obey his order. "Hand it over, human. Now."

The maiden was not willing to yield the helpless being into the hands of her cruel captors, and she backed up slowly in a fruitless effort to get away from the advancing Lunatac. Fed up with her disobedience, RedEye lunged at her and yanked the child from her grasp, then shot her with an electrocuting burst of energy from his chestplate. The weakened slave dropped to the floor unconscious almost immediately. RedEye turned and headed for the cell door with Chilla right behind him.

"We’d better show this to Luna," he grumbled. "She’s not going to like this."

"I don’t like it either," Chilla hissed. "Breeding with a human… how revolting." She shook her head and glared at the child. "Now we know why it takes TugMug so much longer to do his maintenance duties down here. Obviously he takes ‘breaks’. I can’t believe he spawned this thing."

"Personally, I’d rather not know the details. I don’t share his perversions," he said with a disgusted shrug. "The way I see it, Luna always wants to be in charge, so let’s go take this up with our ‘fearless leader’ and make it her problem. We didn’t create this mess, and I’m sure as hell not going to clean it up." He kept a firm grip on the wriggling, bawling infant, and headed through the doors toward the lift, with Chilla right behind him. Feeding the slaves was forgotten.

Luna let out an unintelligible screech of fury that had both RedEye and Chilla covering their ears when they showed her the infant born to the warrior maiden and told her the story. "I don’t believe this!" she raged, waving her riding crop wildly. "How could this happen?"

"Don’t ask me," RedEye said with a shrug.

Chilla scowled. "I think it’s obvious how it happened, Luna." She handed the child to Luna. She and RedEye had washed the child off and put it in a towel, more for aesthetic reasons than out of any actual concern. Luna set the newborn boy in her lap and frowned. Lunatac and human made an odd mix, but at least the child wasn’t beastly ugly. She briefly felt sorry for the creature, born into such an existence, but it passed quickly, replaced by anger. "This is truly shameful. I’m going to get to the bottom of this right now."

She then paged TugMug, who had gotten back from the Thundrillium scouting mission about fifteen minutes prior, and ordered him to come to the control room immediately. When he walked in with Alluro a few minutes later, Amok stomped toward them, mirroring his mistress’ anger, while Luna held up the half-breed child in front of the graviton. "Do you care to explain to me just what this is?"

"A baby?" TugMug replied in a snide tone.

"Very good," Luna sneered back with equal sarcasm. "I’m glad you can figure out that much, you idiot," she snapped. TugMug narrowed his eyes at her as she continued her rant, while a rather perplexed Alluro looked on. "RedEye and Chilla found one of the slaves dead just after giving birth to this boy. Would you mind enlightening us as to how a child of Lunar blood might be born to one of the warrior maiden slaves?"

TugMug attempted to assume an air of arrogant indifference. "I don’t know what you’re talking about, Luna."

Luna glared at him. "I am in no mood for your games. There are only four male Lunatacs in Skytomb, and only two of you have a coloring that bears a resemblance to this human’s offspring. Add that to the fact that slave maintenance is primarily your responsibility, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. So I’ll ask you again, TugMug, what is this child, and how long have you known about it?"

TugMug wheeled toward the console. "What does it matter anyway? It’s a worthless child of a worthless slave. Get rid of it and be done with it."

Amok stomped toward TugMug and growled. Though most of the conversation was over his head, he could feel when Luna was angry and when Luna was angry, so was Amok. Luna meanwhile continued her tirade. "Disposing of it would be convenient, wouldn’t it? But I don’t think you would learn your lesson that way, now would you?"

"Who said it was my doing anyway?" TugMug argued. "You said yourself that two of us have it’s coloring," he said, casting a sidelong glance at Alluro.

Alluro put up his hands in protest. "Oh no, you’re not going to push this off on me. I have much better options than forcing myself on the slaves to get my pleasure," he said hotly, circling an arm around Chilla’s shoulders.

"Sticking it into a freezer isn’t my idea of pleasure," TugMug retorted in his thick First Moon accent.

"Silence!" Luna’s shrill voice cut in. "Alluro’s preferences aren’t the ones in question here. Sleazy as he is, I highly doubt that he would be sloppy enough to leave such obvious evidence of his indiscretion if he was the one responsible. You on the other hand have never been too diligent about cleaning up after yourself… in any way." She glanced down at the squirming infant, then back at him. "Besides, the boy has graviton horns. I’d say that pretty well clears Alluro, don’t you?"

TugMug grumbled, realizing that any further attempts to shift the blame would just make him look stupid. He glared back at Luna indignantly. "So I took a few liberties with a couple of the maidens. So what? They are only slaves. If I have to waste my time keeping them, then I deserve some fringe benefits from doing all the work." A leer crossed his lips. "And if you ask me, I think they like it."

"If you ask me, I think you’re disgusting," Chilla hissed from the side.

Luna forced herself to maintain her composure. "Whether or not they ‘like it’—which I highly doubt—isn’t the point. Your behavior, while debatably contemptible, is also destructive. A perfectly good slave has been lost, one that not only has to be disposed of, but eventually replaced." She sighed as Amok paced in front of him. "Even worse, we’re left with this to contend with," she said, holding out the child. "So here’s your problem, TugMug. Take it and care for it."

TugMug grimaced and grabbed the infant roughly from Luna’s hands. "I’ll take care of it right now," he said, already starting to squeeze its neck with his metal gauntlet.

Luna shrieked and waved her crop in front of his nose. "Not like that you won’t!" To emphasize her point, Amok growled and smashed his fist at what would be the rotund Lunatac’s feet, if he had them. "I said ‘care for it’, not ‘get rid of it’!"

A dumbfounded, then angry expression crossed TugMug’s features as the implications of Luna’s order sank in. He looked at the now-crying half-breed infant, then back up at her in a mixture of utter horror and disgust. The other Lunatacs were also blinking at their leader in shock. Whatever they’d expected her to order done with the child, it hadn’t been that. "Luna, are you out of your mind?" RedEye asked.

"Not at all," she replied. "If I simply get rid of his little mistake, what’s to stop him from doing it again? I don’t want our dungeons to be a breeding ground for a bunch of half-breed brats. Perhaps the permanent role of babysitter will teach TugMug here not to mix business with pleasure."

TugMug bounced in a furious rage. "Forget it, Luna. I want nothing to do with this thing. I detest children."

"Oh you will do it, or I’ll have Amok see to it that you physically can’t impregnate a slave again," she screeched back. "Am I making myself clear?" Again Amok accentuated her seriousness with a pound of his fist. Amok was not sharp enough to catch the more complicated aspects of the confrontation going on, but he did recognize the tiny half-Lunatac as young of his kind, and more importantly, young that his mistress did not want harmed. That was all Amok needed to know: If TugMug hurt the little one, trash TugMug.

Luna tapped her feet against her steed’s horn as she waited for an answer. "I said, ‘am I making myself clear’, TugMug?"

"Yes," he seethed, relaxing his deadly grip on the child’s neck. He shifted the infant so that its weight was against the crux of his arm, supporting him so he wouldn’t fall.

"Daddy TugMug," Alluro said mockingly. "How heartwarming."

"Fuck you, Alluro," the irate hi-grav retorted.

"No thanks, I have my ‘freezer’, remember?" he countered smugly. A withering glance from Chilla wiped the smirk off his face quickly, however. He straightened and fixed his gaze on Luna instead. "So you’re serious about having TugMug raise this…creature?"

Luna met the hypnotist squarely in the eye. "Dead serious."

RedEye frowned. "Why?"

"Yes, why?" TugMug demanded.

Now it was Luna’s turn to frown. The truth was that Luna herself wasn’t entirely sure why. Perhaps it was because she felt that she was already playing mother—or at least babysitter—to her misfit crew, and disciplining one by forcing him to raise his child was exactly what he deserved. Another part of her, one buried so deep that even she wasn’t consciously aware of it, still felt a shred of guilt about nearly taking Chilla’s child from her while it was in the womb. Granted, she’d believed it dead already when she learned it was changed to stone by magic, but had Alluro not so vehemently (or irrationally, as she had felt at the time) objected, it would have been purged from her system by a tea created by her own hand. And while Luna was a cruel and unforgiving soul for the most part, living her childhood with the knowledge that her own mother had abandoned her at birth left her somewhat sympathetic to the young, so long as they weren’t the enemy.

But none of Luna’s outward demeanor betrayed a hint of these motivations. She looked away and waved her crop dismissively. "I told you my reasoning. You don’t need to question it, only do it," she said haughtily.

"That’s easy for you to say," TugMug snarled, wheeling over toward her with the whimpering child still tucked under his arm. "You aren’t the one forced to take care of it."

Chilla exhaled with heavy disgust, leaving a frosty mist hanging in the air. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you raped the human."

"And maybe since you seem to like children so much," he said, pointing to her swollen belly, "you should take care of it instead."

"Since when did Skytomb become a nursery, anyway?" RedEye growled under his breath.

Since I said so, that’s when," Luna snapped, her tone making it clear that she would not stand for another word of argument. "The subject is closed. TugMug, I suggest you get your son some sort of milk or nourishment, and then put him to bed. You have a dead body to dispose of—and I want it done before we retire tonight." She prodded Amok to take her to the door. "And make no mistake, I will check. Not only on that, but to make sure you haven’t made any other messes to be cleaned up," she added before leaving the room altogether.

Alluro and Chilla exchanged looks, and also headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" TugMug demanded, wheeling after them. The baby in his arms went from quietly whimpering to loudly crying.

"I’m going to lie down. After all that screeching, I have a headache."

"Ah, my poor Chilla," Alluro whispered, rubbing her shoulders. It wasn’t so much an affectionate gesture as it was a possessive one, but Chilla tolerated it since it was pleasant, and his attention flattered her. Alluro turned to TugMug on the way out and gave the half-breed child a disapproving look. "I suggest that you find out what’s causing him to cry like that and tend to it. It’s rather annoying."

"Like yours won’t be doing the same thing in a month or two," RedEye grumbled. He pushed past them abruptly, fed up with all the others for not the first time in the more recent weeks that had passed. "I’ll be elsewhere. And don’t call if you need me." He then left the control room.

"Likewise," Chilla said, casting a parting glare at RedEye and then shifting her gaze to TugMug. Alluro followed suit, leaving TugMug and the screaming half-breed child alone in the control room.

The graviton stared down at the infant creature in his arms and frowned. He felt no connection or instinct to care for it. It was perhaps a bit interesting at most, in that its features were to him, grotesquely unique, but other than that it held little appeal. It couldn’t even walk on its own, it was cumbersome to hold, too small to be any good, and it was loud to boot. "If you weren’t a male I’d call you Luna," he said with disgust.

* * *

Luna had Amok take her straight down to the slave quarters. She was furious, and her stomach twisted into knots of anger. "That idiot," she ranted. "If we were back on the Moons I’d have him publicly beaten for such incompetence and stupidity." And she would have had the power to do it too. Not only was her father’s family one of noble connections, tied into the royals loosely, but her father had also had the money to back such things up. It went without saying that Luna had free reign to use those resources, and after his death at her tender age of fifteen, they’d all become hers, and since she was an only child, they were hers alone.

But that was all years ago now. Before the Thundercats, before Mumm-Ra, before they’d wound up stranded by that thrice-cursed mage on Third Earth… and there was no going back. As Amok pulled open the heavy door that led to the lower levels, she shook her head and sighed in disgust. "You’d think that if fate was cruel enough to strand me in this worthless primitive world, it would at least have the mercy to give me decent company." Amok grunted, and she quickly amended her words. "Present company excluded of course, Amok," she said with a pat to his head.

He grunted a pleased reply and carried her to the first dungeon containing warrior maiden prisoners. Luna was pleased to see that none of them, or any of the others in nearby cells, appeared to have been unfortunate enough to conceive. When they reached the cell that contained the dead slave woman’s body she had Amok pull it out and leave it in the hallway so at the very least, TugMug wouldn’t be inclined to go and take out any frustrations he might have on the other slaves. It was not that she cared about them really, but she didn’t want to see any of their slave labor wasted to a mindless temper tantrum on her hotheaded underling’s part. Once that was taken care of, she and her steed went back up to their quarters to take a much-needed rest.

RedEye stood in front of a blue-colored steel security door on Skytomb’s hangar level and placed his hand against the scanner to gain access. He smiled smugly when it swished open. Technically a blue door was supposed to admit any of the six Lunatacs, but this one had been reprogrammed to allow entry to RedEye and RedEye only. The Skytomb security system was a fairly efficient one, based on color-coding and identification by voice and hand prints, designed by Luna and programmed by himself. There were three levels: green, blue, and red. Green was general access. All six Lunatacs as well as their uneasy allies, the Mutants, had green level access to areas coded in that color. Blue was higher-security, restricted to the Skytomb crew alone. Areas such as the Thundrillium bunkers, slave dungeons, and engine rooms were all coded in blue to prevent Mutants from tampering with it in the event that they would be stupid enough to try and double-cross them. Their personal quarters also had blue-level security, though those were specially programmed to respond only to the voice and hand scans of the Lunatac assigned to them, and Luna. Luna was paranoid enough that she wanted to be able to inspect anything at any time, and that was why she also demanded the installation of the red code. Red-level security was found on only a few doors, as Luna didn’t require much private space, but it was off-limits to everyone but her. Even after RedEye had installed her security codes, she had changed all the passwords so he wouldn’t be able to get in either.

Fortunately for RedEye, he had the foresight to program a small loophole in the program that allowed him access to all the classified information, including Luna’s red codes. Hacking into Luna’s system proved to be less interesting than he’d expected though. He’d been rather disappointed to find nothing behind her closed doors except for a small stash of weapons and survival supplies—for use against a sudden and unexpected insurrection, no doubt—and a lot of space cluttered with her personal possessions and treasures. There was nothing of value to him behind the doors, so after his initial break-in he never bothered to go back. He hadn’t even told the others about it. A smile crept across his face as he thought about his secret. If Luna knew how long I’ve had access to everything, she’d probably have a heart attack and keel over. Picturing the look on her face when she found out made him grin even more widely.

Not that he had any intention of telling her. He’d decided long ago that the most fun part of his secret was keeping it just that—a secret.

And his specially programmed blue-door storage/work room, with codes replaced from his own quarters to override the general blue access ones, was a part of that secret that he especially enjoyed. He took it shortly after Skytomb was built. Chilla had complained she couldn’t get in once when she was looking for parts to her Ice Runner, but the matter was dropped when he had volunteered to fix it. The "broken" door had only been mentioned in passing since, and RedEye always gave the same answer, that he "was working on it", and that placated them, as nothing of vital importance was stored in there anyway.

"If they only knew," RedEye chuckled as he stepped in, the doors sealing shut behind him. He looked up at his project and grinned.

The storage room held a nearly complete and functional space cruiser, built over the course of the last several months from scrounged (and stolen, mostly from Castle Plundarr) parts. He had named the ship the Aurora Shadow, in honor of a love lost countless years ago that he still—foolishly so, he admonished himself—held a fond memory for. The Aurora Shadow was a sleek vehicle, only slightly larger in size than the Lunattacker, but capable of seating a crew of seven for a space flight comparable to what the Thundercats’ Feliner could handle. At present, the Aurora Shadow couldn’t fit through his security doors, but he had plans drawn up already for replacing the wall with a door it could fit through in the works and ready to be implemented upon the ship’s completion.

The odd part was, he had no real plans for the ship. He’d initially started building it as something to do, an excuse to get away from the others and a project that he could lose himself in for hours at a time. Eventually he planned to use it to leave Third Earth, but he hadn’t really thought about where he’d go or when or who he would—or wouldn’t—take with him. He didn’t hate the others enough to leave them behind (if they paid him enough) but he didn’t exactly relish their company either, especially of late.

Luna’s condescending order-barking attitude grew more tiresome by the day. For a long time he’d been able to ignore the worst of her tantrums, but after repeated defeats and failures at her command—ones she took no responsibility for—he was hitting his limit of how much of her he could take. Unlike Alluro and TugMug, RedEye was not really an ambitious type. He was content to let someone else shoulder the burden of being "leader", so long as he got what he felt he deserved of the spoils of victory. However, being Luna’s flunky was not part of that deal, and he resented her thinking of it in such terms.

Alluro was no better. Oh yes, he was more pleasant and at times, more reasonable than their troll-like leader, but he was far less capable of managing things. Luna’s pride had gotten them into trouble, but Alluro’s ego combined with a greater lack of common sense could easily get them all killed if he somehow wound up in charge. And then there was his relationship with Chilla, which only clouded his judgment further. A man would do irrational things to secure the affections of a woman he wanted, and it was clear to anyone in Skytomb that Alluro felt such things for Chilla, whether his arrogance would let him admit to them or not.

As for Chilla, RedEye was finding her increasingly difficult to deal with. Chilla was not the easiest Lunatac to get along with, and her short temper combined with the stress of her pregnancy only made her more irritable. He also knew it would only get worse as her condition progressed. Even after she gave birth, he was certain the stress of caring for her young would either make her absent altogether from her regular duties, or at the very least tired and miserable—more so than usual, he imagined—to be around when she would do them. As for the issue of her child itself, he was disgusted at the thought. Children were destructive, annoying, and in his opinion, had no place in a war fortress.

And thanks to TugMug, now there would be two. A snarl crossed the darkling’s features as he sat down at his makeshift desk to look over the Aurora Shadow’s plans. If it gets any worse, I’m out of here for good, he vowed. He then eliminated the depressing train of thought altogether and concentrated with double determination on his designs.

After leaving the messy scene in the control room, Alluro and Chilla had retired to her quarters. Though they had fallen more into the role of a couple than casual lovers as her pregnancy progressed, they still maintained their own areas individually. They often spent nights together, either in one or the other’s bedroom, but never claimed an area as their own, aside from the room they’d reserved for their child. Even that room was separate from theirs—next door to Chilla’s, and across the hall from Alluro’s. It was a practical set up and neither questioned the logic of it, though occasionally Alluro wondered if it would always be that way.

Chilla had no such questions. She was never a type to concern herself with anything that wasn’t of immediate importance, and certainly not the type to waste energy indulging chains of thought based in whim or emotion except in the rarest of circumstances. That night was no exception. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she left the control room. She did indeed have a headache, and it had been brought on by Luna, both in her screeching and in her decision to force TugMug to keep his half-breed child around. "What in the name of the Moons is she thinking?" she ranted to Alluro, reclining on her bed with her. The hypnotist was gently massaging her temples in an effort to relax her, but it hadn’t accomplished the goal. "TugMug can’t even take care of himself. The child will be dead in a week, if that."

"You’re asking me to explain Luna?" he replied lightly, careful to keep his tone low as he spoke. He chuckled. "Someone like her would drive the strongest empath to the brink of insanity." His fingers applied a bit more pressure and he added a slight hypnotic lilt to his voice. "Don’t worry about it, Chilla. Just rest. The child is TugMug’s problem, not ours. He’ll deal with it, or Amok will deal with him. He’s not quite as stupid as he acts."

"He couldn’t be," she snorted in reply, and rolled over onto her side to try and get in a more comfortable position. Her stomach lurched uncomfortably, and she felt the unborn Lunatac within her kick the inside of her belly in violent protest. She clenched her fist and sighed a frosty breath before shifting onto her back again. "I won’t even be able to sleep comfortably in another week," she complained in a tired voice.

Alluro slid his hands from her temples to her shoulders in a show of sympathy. He didn’t really know what to say to soothe her. He didn’t want to thrall her outright—tempting as it was—and order to her to sleep, but he couldn’t sit there and say with a straight face that he understood, either. He had to admit, he’d probably be crabby if he had something that big squirming around

in his gut too, especially after hearing Luna screech all night. Hells, one didn’t even need to be physically uncomfortable to understand that misery. "It’ll get better, Chilla," he said, attempting to be reassuring. "You don’t have much longer."

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Chilla glanced up at him, clearly annoyed, and shoved away from him with one arm. "Good night, Alluro," she snapped before she rolled over and closed her eyes.

Now abandoned on the other side of the bed, Alluro sighed and clicked off the light. It was going to be another long, cold night.

TugMug wheeled into the kitchen and set the wailing infant on the table. He opened the door to their chill room and looked over its contents with a blank look on his face. What was he supposed to feed it? Weren’t babies supposed to be nursed or something? "Stupid Luna," he griped, rifling through the shelves in the chill room. "I’m not a damned babysitter. This is ridiculous." He threw several things that were in his way aside until he found what he was looking for, a flask containing some milk.

He rolled back over to the table and scooped the infant up in his arms. "Open wide," he said, and squeezed the child’s face. The tiny boy cried in discomfort, and as soon as he opened his mouth, TugMug poured a stream of the cold fluid into his mouth. The baby immediately choked and gagged, and TugMug dropped him back on the table in surprise. The milk ejected violently from his mouth, soaking the table nearby, and he began crying again.

"Oh damn it," TugMug growled. "What’s the matter with you? Just drink it!"

Luna heard the ruckus as she passed through the hallway and had Amok bring her in. What she saw made her blood boil. "You idiot!" she screeched. "What on in the name of the gods do you think you’re doing?"

"I’m feeding the brat, like you said," TugMug snarled back.

"You spilled more of it than he drank. And where’s the bottle?" Luna snatched the flask of milk out of TugMug’s hands. "What? This milk is cold."

"No shit, it came from the chill room," snorted the graviton.

"You can’t feed a newborn cold milk," Luna snapped back. "I’ve never borne a child and even I know that."

TugMug growled angrily, picked up the crying baby, and flung him at Luna. Luna shrieked and Amok instinctively caught him before he could fall. "What is the matter with you!" an outraged Luna hollered. "Are you trying to kill him, is that it?"

TugMug glared at the troll. "It wouldn’t be much of a loss."

"And neither will be your arms, when I have Amok break them," the tiny Lunar woman seethed. "I warned you about what would happen if you didn’t take care of him. Amok, hand me the boy and show TugMug what it means to defy my orders." The white brute did as he was ordered, and once the half-breed infant was safely in Luna’s arms, he lunged toward the graviton, growling menacingly.

TugMug’s eyes went wide in fear and protest when Amok’s arm closed tightly around his wrist and began to pull and twist. He tried to wrench out of the brute’s grip but to no avail. Amok then drew back his other arm and punched the hi-grav hard in the chest, making him gasp for air. "Luna—stop—"

"And why should I?" Luna pressed. She did not give her steed the order to stop, so he pulled TugMug’s arm harder until there was a loud crack, and a white-hot flash of pain shot through his body.

"I’ll… I’ll be nice to it…" he grunted. It certainly wasn’t that he wanted to, but he also wanted use of his arms.

Luna tapped Amok’s horn lightly with her toe. "Release him, Amok." Amok obeyed and let TugMug go. He wheeled a few feet back and gripped his aching wrist, grimacing. "It’ll heal," Luna said unsympathetically. "Now, as to the boy…"

TugMug gritted his teeth. "Give me the little pest."

Luna held up her hand and shook her head. "No, I’ll feed him this time. You’re obviously too simpleminded for that little task. Clean up the slave body and prepare him a suitable bed somewhere other than your disgusting quarters and I’ll meet you upstairs."

The hi-grav man snarled something unintelligible at her, except for the word "bitch" more than once, and wheeled out of the room.

Luna’s eyes met the infant’s. "Classy man, your father," she noted with more than a little sarcasm in her voice. But for reasons she didn’t understand, she still patted him on the head and reached for the flask of milk. "Now, let’s see if we can’t do this properly, little one." She went over to the stove and started to heat a pot of water which she then set the milk flask in, and then

with some creative effort managed to get a makeshift bottle together. She made a mental note to have Alluro or RedEye craft a better one. She figured Alluro would do it, if only to have one or two around for his and Chilla’s child to use.

Once the milk was warmed, she fed it to the child and wondered if it would be enough. "We should probably have Alluro run some bloodwork on you soon to make sure you’re not malnourished," she muttered absentmindedly. She found it odd that she was giving the misfit creature as much attention she was. After all, why should she care if TugMug’s bastard half-breed died?

Because he doesn’t, her own thoughts answered grimly. And as much as she loathed the idea of having to look after such a creature, she loathed the idea that he would kill a child of his own blood even more.

TugMug hauled the dead, blood-covered warrior maiden to the furnace and threw her body in, grimacing as her weight jostled his now-bandaged wrist. "Thanks for nothing, bitch," he growled as he watched her burn. He blamed the dead maiden for his predicament. If she hadn’t already been dead, he would have certainly killed her for saddling him with that whining spawn of hers, even though until a few months ago, she’d been one of his more compliant playthings. The unlucky warrior woman had been in their dungeons for nearly a rotation of Third Earth around its sun. TugMug had captured her himself on a past raid of their kingdom, and he’d immediately taken a liking to her fiery red hair. It was a less common color on the humans and it turned him on, which he’d shown her the very first time he had the chance. Of course she had fought him—they all got violent when he wanted to have fun, it seemed—but some well-placed whip lashes and his gravity carbine made her easy to take when she couldn’t fight back. After a few months of "training", he’d broken her to the point where he didn’t need to use the carbine and just the threat of pain was enough. He still kept the whip though. It just wasn’t as much fun without a little pain, after all.

Now as he burned her scarred body, he realized the child must have been the reason she had seemed to be putting on weight. Until then he had just assumed that she’d been stealing some of her cellmates’ food, or that the extra "treats" he’d given her for compliance—usually forced on her during his twisted sessions of ‘play’—were sticking with her. "Stupid woman. Inferior humans shouldn’t even be able to breed with Lunatacs."

He wondered ruefully if the birth of the half-breed would mean he couldn’t have his "fun" with the others anymore. He supposed it did, and that made him even angrier. Having his way with the slaves was one of his more entertaining pastimes, but he certainly didn’t want to deal with any more brats his crazy bitch of a boss might insist he take care of. So what did that leave him? Wollos? Brutemen? Luna? Even he wasn’t that perverse.

"Damn Luna," he grumbled as he bounded back up to the higher decks. "She ruins all my fun."

Once Luna was finished feeding the tiny half-breed child, she handed him to Amok, who spent a good twenty minutes staring at the tiny child in a strange sort of amazement, which in turn came as a surprise to Luna. Though she knew her steed wasn’t the brightest Lunatac—none of his kind were—she’d never noticed any sort of caretaking urge in him before. Well, except for his attentiveness to her, of course, but she didn’t really want to think that it was he who saw her as the child to be taken care of.

"All right Amok, give the boy to me," she ordered, and Amok agreeably handed the baby to her. It occurred to her that the child still had no name. She wondered what TugMug would call him, and realized in more truth than jest, he’d probably call him something like "kid" or even worse, name him something like "beer" or the first obscenity that sprang to his mind. She sighed. "We’ll have to get your father to think of a suitable name for you. I can’t simply call you ‘child’ for the rest of your existence, and if you’re to grow up in Skytomb, you’ll need some sort of name."

Amok felt Luna’s heel tap him, and he obediently started for the hall, toward the elevator. "Call him ‘baby’?" the hulking beast suggested.

Luna smiled despite herself. "That’s not quite what I had in mind, Amok."

"Oh," he grunted back. "Little thing?"

"No. Maybe something a little more true to his heritage. Something relating to his being born of two bloods or two worlds." She paused. "But not Rislir," she added hastily, using her native term for half-breed. While it meant any child of mixed Lunar blood, it had some negative connotations on her home world, mostly because of the insanity that plagued Rislirs that had some Third Moon Hunter blood in them. "No," she continued, "something else."

"Man-tac?" Amok volunteered.

Luna blinked at Amok’s words as they stepped in the elevator. "What?" she repeated, leaning over so she could see Amok’s face.

The brute beast smiled back at his mistress, clearly proud of himself. "Man-tac," he repeated. "Man, human. Tac, Lunatac." It was as clear as the dim-minded Lunatac could express himself.

Luna couldn’t help but laugh at her steed’s enthusiasm. "Cute, Amok," she said with a shake of her head. "Man-tac. But that doesn’t have quite the right ring. Man-ac has more of a flow to it." She paused. She was only playing along with her mount as a joke, but now that she thought about it, had her simple brute come up with a decent name after all? It surprised her, but she did like the ring of the "Man-ac" sound. It reminded her of "manic", and it had elements of both human heritage and craziness—lunacy—something their kind was known for. "Man-ac," Luna repeated thoughtfully. She frowned and changed her enunciation slightly, drawing more on her native Third Moon accent. "Manach," she repeated. "I like it, Amok. Manach. We will suggest it to TugMug. At the very least, it sounds better than ‘beer’."

She patted Amok on the head as the lift stopped on the floor that held all their personal quarters. "Good boy. Now let’s find TugMug and see if he’s set up our little Manach’s bedroom for him. He’s looking a bit tired."

Luna and Amok made their way down the hallway toward TugMug’s quarters. When they got there the door was open, as was a room further down the hall that was unoccupied. Luna prodded Amok to take her to investigate, and she saw TugMug stuffing pillows and sheets roughly into a wooden crate. He looked up when he heard Luna and Amok enter and frowned. "Here’s the damn bed," he snapped. "Throw the kid in there and he’ll sleep."

Luna frowned and handed the infant to TugMug. "You will put him down gently, not throw him, unless you want him to wind up as brain-damaged as you are."

TugMug grunted under his breath and took the child with his uninjured arm, and set the boy in his crib.

"Good," Luna stated. "Now let’s let him rest for the night." She had Amok take her back into the hall and beckoned for TugMug to follow. The graviton wheeled out behind her, shut off the light, and closed the door. "All right TugMug," the Lunar woman started, "I’m sure I don’t have to say that I’ll be checking up on you to make sure that the child is well cared for, correct?"

TugMug rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Luna."

Luna narrowed her eyes, but figured the earlier threat of what she’d do to him if she didn’t still stood. "Good. Now then, what have you decided to name the boy? I need something to refer to him as other than ‘child’."

TugMug shrugged. "I don’t care. Call him ‘the kid’ for all it matters to me."

Luna sighed when she realized that her earlier conjecture was truer than she’d have liked to see it be. "You can’t think of anything more appropriate?" she asked impatiently. "Not a family name or even something like ‘junior’?"

"I said I don’t care," TugMug emphasized with a bounce. "Call him whatever you want. I’ll never call him anything but a burden," he said irritably as he wheeled down the hall.

Luna frowned sternly, and with clear disgust. "Amok’s name stands then. He will be called Manach."

TugMug only waved his hand apathetically. "Whatever," was all he said before he wheeled into his quarters and the metal door slid shut.

RedEye emerged from his secret area well after daybreak. He hadn’t bothered going to bed, and had simply slept in the pilot’s chair of the Aurora Shadow when he got tired. He’d been drawing more designs until fatigue hit him, and the leathery cushioned seat, meant to be comfortable for long distance travel, had sufficed nicely.

He went to the control room to see TugMug there, alone, by the panel. He noticed his bandaged arm and gave him a curious look. "How did you manage that?"

"I didn’t manage it," the hi-grav replied curtly. "The troll had Amok do it to me when I told her what she could do with her pushy orders and that brat she wants me to keep."

A disgusted look crossed the darkling’s features at the mention of the infant. "So she was serious with that nonsense about raising it?" He sighed and brought up some area scans of DarkSide on the console. "I hoped that was just another of her tantrums."

TugMug snorted. "She was serious, all right. Seriously crazy." He rubbed his tender wrist. "But until she gives up on this stupid idea of keeping the child around, I guess I’m stuck with it."

"Skytomb is not a playground," RedEye grumbled. "And Luna should get that through her thick head. What’s the matter with her anyway? She’s never struck me as a maternal type."

"She’s probably going senile, the old bat."

"The ‘old bat’ isn’t nearly as senile as you are," Luna’s shrill voice cut into the conversation from the doorway. "You’re the one who forgot to check on your child before coming down here this morning." The irritated Lunar woman held out the squirming boy and gestured for TugMug to take him. "I’m going to be generous and assume that was an oversight, and not deliberate."

TugMug waved her back. "I’m busy, Luna, not now."

Amok stomped forward and pushed TugMug aside to get his attention for Luna. "You weren’t too busy when you were screwing around—literally—on slave maintenance duty with his mother either, so don’t give me that excuse," she snapped. "Take Manach and watch him."

"Manach?" RedEye repeated. "So you’ve named that atrocity now?"

"Not that it concerns you, but yes," she replied with a challenging note in her voice.

RedEye let out a snort of disgust. "What’s next? A playroom built on the third level? Stealing toys from the wollo children? Hiring the Thundercats to baby-sit while we’re out raiding like we should be?"

Luna narrowed her eyes at the dark-dweller. "Don’t mock my decisions, RedEye."

"And why not? Look at how you’re acting. Have you gone completely mad? It’s bad enough that Chilla’s decided to breed and bear a child in Skytomb, but why do you have to compound the inconvenience by saddling us with another?"

Amok growled at RedEye’s insolent tone, while Luna scowled and pointed her crop at him. "He may be an inconvenience now, but did either of you short-sighted fools stop to think that when he gets older, he might grow up to be an extra pair of useful hands and possibly a warrior? Something that we’re rather short on, when compared with the number of Thundercats giving us

headaches in our conquest of this planet."

RedEye was not swayed. "And by forcing TugMug to raise that creature, you’ve shorted us one more."

"Oh, he’s resourceful. He can take care of the child and still have time to go berbil-bouncing with you," Luna retorted sarcastically. "He’ll just have to spend less time being the lazy lout that he usually is."

TugMug whirled around and pointed his carbine at Luna. "That’s it! I’ve had it with you!"

Immediately reacting to the threat, Amok reared and swung his fist, knocking the carbine aside and TugMug off balance. Atop him, Luna kept a firm hold of the baby and glared at the hi-grav. "And I’m equally tired of you," she snapped. "So shut up and take the boy. I have things to do." She thrust Manach into his arms, and she and Amok stormed out.

TugMug set the baby in one of the chairs and groaned as he started crying. "Damn it, shut UP!" He slammed his fist into the console.

RedEye had all he could take. "Ridiculous," was all he hissed out under his breath before leaving himself.

A tired Chilla passed by the irate Luna in the hallway. The ice woman wondered what had her leader in such a fine mood, but she knew better than to ask, for she was in no mood to hear one of her long-winded tirades. Chilla herself hadn’t slept well, having spent most of the night trying to get comfortable with little luck until the earliest hours in the morning, when she’d finally drifted off into a dreamless sleep. She’d awakened only a few hours later to find Alluro fast asleep next to her. She was relieved when her getting out of bed didn’t rouse him. She could certainly use some time to herself.

It wasn’t so much that she minded his company. Of the Lunatacs in Skytomb, Alluro was by far the easiest to get along with, and she found his advances flattering, enough so that it had gotten her into the state that she was in now. But over the last few months, he’d developed a possessive and protective streak that annoyed her on more occasions than it pleased her. He left her little time to herself, and while his companionship was tolerable, she deeply resented his implication that she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d told him that more than once, but she felt like she was talking to a brick wall. He still followed her around constantly, and she couldn’t get him to knock it off, short of icing him—which she’d done more times than she felt she should have had to as of late.

Chilla was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice Luna and Amok had turned around to catch up with her until she heard Amok’s heavy footfalls behind her. "What do you want, Luna?" the ice woman rasped irritably.

"Where is Alluro?"

She gestured in the direction of their quarters. "Asleep."

"Still? It’s nearly midday," Luna noted, glancing at a timepiece she kept in one of Amok’s pouches.

"Yes, still. And don’t wake him up," Chilla replied tersely.

Luna raised an eyebrow when she picked up on the other Lunatac’s mood. "Oh, getting a little tired of his hovering, are you?"

Chilla snorted in amusement despite herself. "Does it show that much?"

Luna nodded and smiled thinly. "He’ll ease off once the child is born. You know that old wives’ tale back on the Moons about Lunar men being overprotective of their mates before childbirth is true. It’s a hormonal reaction, but it is temporary."

"Hormonal?" Chilla repeated. "I’m the one who’s pregnant, not him."

The tiny Lunatac let out a short, shrill laugh. "True enough, but he’s reacting to yours. It has to do with proximity and scent. The closer you are, the worse he’ll be affected. Unfortunately, nature is conspiring against you. The male body interprets it as attraction and acts accordingly, which is why you can’t get rid of him." She shrugged and waved her crop in an offhandedly. "You might as well enjoy the attention while it lasts, before he goes back to being his usual arrogant self."

"At this point, I’d welcome it," Chilla sighed. Having a biological basis to blame Alluro’s behavior on made it no less annoying.

"If it’s any consolation, he won’t be bothering you for a short while. I have to speak with him about crafting some things for TugMug’s child."

Chilla raised an eyebrow. "If you’re forcing TugMug to care for the half-breed, why are you concerned with it?"

"Because," Luna said with a sigh, "if the child simply dies from TugMug’s neglect, then the reminder of his mistake will be forgotten, and he’ll be back to his old habits in a week. I won’t tolerate that."

The icewalker shook her head at Luna’s logic. "You’re crazy, Luna. If you’re serious about keeping that creature alive, you might as well just take him yourself and claim him as yours. If nothing else, he’d at least be raised with table manners," she said, and started back down the hall.

Luna opened her mouth to voice a reply, but found no words came to form a suitable one. As the ice woman left, she noticed her awkward gait. "Chilla, one last thing? When are you due, anyhow?"

"Two weeks," Chilla hissed as she stepped into the elevator. "Two more long weeks."

When the doors slid shut, Luna prodded Amok to find Alluro. "Two more weeks," she mused with a shake of her head. "Two more weeks and our Manach will have a playmate. Can you imagine the absurdity of that, Amok?"

"Little ones," Amok grunted as he knocked his heavy fist against the door to awaken Alluro.

"No wonder RedEye thinks I’ve gone mad," Luna muttered as she pondered the image of two toddlers running around the control room. "I’m starting to think it myself."

TugMug had been in the control room for about half an hour when the crying of the infant in the chair finally became unbearable. "What?" he hollered at the baby. "What do you need now? Food? Sleep? A shot of whiskey? What?"

The baby only answered him with more incessant wailing.

"These things should be able to talk," he grumbled with aggravation. He tried to think about what the kid would be crying about, and he realized it probably was food. He’d assumed Luna had fed him since she had last night, but maybe she hadn’t. "Is that it? You wanna eat?" He picked the child up with his good arm and wheeled out toward the kitchen. Once there he set him in a chair, blocking him in with his carbine so Luna wouldn’t come in and throw yet another hissy fit if he should happen to fall. He went into the chill room to retrieve the milk, but saw that it had been left out the night before. A quick whiff confirmed that it was spoiled. He was tempted to feed it to the brat anyway, and just tell Luna that he thought she wanted it fed warm, but figured she’d probably see through it and with a resigned sigh, chucked it into the waste chute. "What in the hells do I feed you with no milk?"

He looked around. The kid would need something it didn’t have to chew, but what? He scanned the shelves until he saw a canister of powdered meal fortified with various nutrients that could be reconstituted with water. It was mainly for when they had to go on long trips where the food supply was questionable, and didn’t want to burden themselves with rations. "That’ll work," he decided, and yanked it from the shelf. He poured some into a bowl and added some lukewarm water, and stirred it until it was the consistency of a thick soup. He grabbed a spoon and wheeled over to where the baby was still crying in the chair.

"Here’s some food, now shut up." He thrust the spoon into its mouth and dumped its contents on the child’s tongue. The baby squirmed and choked, and immediately most of what he fed him spilled out the sides of his mouth in long, thick strings. "I thought you were hungry!" he shouted furiously. "Now eat and stop your wailing, damn it!" He took a bigger spoonful and jammed it into his mouth. This time he held the mouth shut so it couldn’t be spat back out, and the child swallowed, but coughed and jerked violently in his grasp.

"You’re an idiot," Chilla informed him as she entered the kitchen.

"Thank you, Miss Expert," he snarled back, wiping traces of the reconstituted food off his hand. "You’re a woman, you tell me how to feed this thing without him spitting it all over the place. I’d let the brat starve but I don’t want to listen to him cry and carry on."

"I don’t think you’re supposed to spoon-feed them that young," she pointed out condescendingly.

TugMug glared at her. "Then maybe we should just induce labor on you so you can feed both the brats the natural way."

Chilla slammed her cup on the counter and spun on her heels with more grace than her condition should have allowed, and spat thick stream of ice at TugMug, coating his injured arm, shoulder, and part of his ear. She stomped toward him with a lethal gleam in her eye. "Don’t ever, ever, if you value your worthless life, presume to demean me to the status of your mistake’s nursemaid again," she snarled. "Am I making myself crystal clear?" She leaned over his face and exhaled a heavy frost onto his face.

"F-f-fine," shivered the indignant TugMug.

"Good." She straightened her awkward posture and fired three precise beams of heat from her hand to blast off the ice and stalked back over to the counter without another word.

TugMug shook the numbness out of his limbs and rubbed his ear. He sighed when he heard the half-breed child cry again, and decided to try another tactic at feeding him. He coated the spoon and smeared his lips and tongue with the food. It appeared to work better. The infant licked it off and swallowed, most of it, and even though it made a mess, after several more spoonfuls he quieted down. TugMug was relieved to see that, and hoped he’d finally have some peace and quiet.

Holding a plateful of the food she’d made for herself, Chilla started for the door but paused by TugMug and the child to survey his handiwork. Her face wrinkled in clear disapproval. "You’d better clean this mess up. This kitchen is dirty enough without

you smearing that crap everywhere."

Still furious with her, TugMug threw the dirty spoon on the floor in a huff. "The day I take orders from you is the day I wheel out of this dump for good!"

Chilla let out a rasp of derisive laughter. "We should be so lucky."

TugMug glared at her. "Look, if all you’re going to do is give me a hard time, then do me a favor and leave me the hell alone."

"Gladly," the ice woman retorted. On her way out through the door she paused long enough to say one thing. "Oh, and by the way, your kid stinks. Try giving him a bath, and while you’re at it, take one yourself. You reek."

The infuriated hi-grav threw the remainder of the baby’s food against the wall. The metal bowl hit the steel barrier with a loud clang, and the vanilla-colored soup splattered against it in a star-shaped pattern before it oozed over itself in a shapeless blob towards the floor. Barely giving the mess a second glance, TugMug retrieved his carbine, plucked the messy child off the chair, and wheeled him to the nearest bathroom.

TugMug plopped the baby in the sink while he ran bath water, cursing under his breath the whole time. He wouldn’t have bothered with Chilla’s suggestion, for he didn’t think that the kid smelled bad, but he supposed that the baby would leave crusty food smears on everything he touched if he didn’t. That would certainly make Luna come bitching at him to clean it up, so he figured he would just wash the kid off then and there and get it over with. He waited until the water in the tub until it was nearly full, and when it was ready he unceremoniously picked the baby up, tore off his diaper—which had apparently needed changing after all—and tossed him in. The baby cried in alarm and splashed in the deep water instinctively trying to keep his head above it.

"Babies can swim, so don’t act like you can’t," TugMug grumbled to the child, and pushed him underwater. He figured repeated dunking would get all the grime loosened the fastest, and then he could towel the rest off. The baby wailed and squealed in panicked protest each time it broke the surface for air, before TugMug pushed him back under.

The infant made enough of a ruckus that it attracted Chilla’s attention from down the hall, and she came to the doorway to see what was going on. She was shocked to see TugMug by the bathtub with the child, repeatedly shoving the struggling creature under the water. "What the hell are you doing?" she hissed in disbelief. "Are you trying to drown him?"

TugMug spun around, splashing water everywhere, while the baby flailed in the tub crying for help. "I’m giving him a bath like you said," he snapped back. "What does it look like?"

"It looks to me like you’re trying to kill him—"

Chilla had barely finished repeating her words before Amok roughly shoved her aside and charged into the room. Amok plunged his hand into the bath water and fished the infant out while Luna screamed in fury. "I warned you what would happen if you killed him!"

"He’s not dead!" TugMug shouted back. "He’s alive. I was just giving him a bath!"

"You were trying to drown him!" Luna shrieked shrilly. "Chilla saw you!"

"Even you’re not stupid enough to not know that holding a baby underwater will drown it," Alluro interrupted from the door. He’d come downstairs with Luna after she had rudely awakened him and harangued him into agreeing to craft some bottles for the child. Now he stood at Chilla’s side, shaking his head at TugMug.

"I wasn’t holding him, I was dunking him," TugMug explained, waving his arms in the air wildly. "I was letting him breathe."

"He was," Chilla said with a sigh. "He is that stupid."

"Who asked you!" he shouted back.

"Enough!" Luna screamed. The other Lunatacs, except for Amok, winced and fell silent at her shriek. Amok patted the baby with a towel and tried to calm the tiny half-Lunatac to sniffles instead of sobs. Amok was not an articulate sort, but he did understand fear and pain, and he knew that his mistress didn’t want the little one hurt, so he did his best to comfort it while she yelled at the others. Luna, on the other hand, was so angry that she was physically shaking. "Stupid or not, there is no excuse for something like this! You hate that child, fine, you’ve more than proven that. You want to see him dead and out of your hair, fine! Why don’t you go ahead and kill him then? But do it now, and do it quickly, because I won’t stand for you torturing him any longer with your neglectful so-called care!"

Amok’s eyes widened in horror when he heard what Luna said, and he hugged the tiny Lunatac protectively. As a guardian and one partial to little ones, even he would not comply with that order from his mistress. "No, Luna."

Before Luna had a chance to say anything else, TugMug glared at her. "What? First you make me keep him and now you want me to kill him?"

"No hurt baby." Amok’s words were simple, but firm, and accentuated with a growl that even Luna could not challenge.

Luna sighed, trying to reel in her temper. "That’s not what I meant, Amok. I don’t want him dead."

Leaning casually in the doorway, Alluro frowned. "What do you mean then, Luna?" he asked as RedEye, who had heard all the screaming, also approached the gathering of Lunatacs in the bathroom. RedEye eyed them all curiously.

Luna ignored Alluro. "Give him to me, Amok. I won’t hurt him."

"No." Amok’s grip tightened, keeping the potentially deadly arm of his mistress away.

"You know I won’t harm him, Amok. Who’s been after TugMug to keep him alive?"

Amok frowned suspiciously, not quite convinced.

"I only said it in anger. I don’t want to get rid of him. I—I rather like him." Luna’s voice took on a softer, more emotional tone that the others rarely heard. It was a voice she usually reserved for her steed only. "And if keeping him alive means keeping him out of his father’s incompetent hands, then I will care for him myself."

The beast’s expression softened and he handed her the baby. "Be nice to little one."

Luna wordlessly took the whimpering half-breed into her arms and wrapped him in the towel. Alluro and Chilla exchanged shocked, if not amused, looks, while RedEye glared and TugMug blinked in astonishment. "You mean you’re letting me off the hook?"

"Not quite," the tiny leader snapped, reverting back to her shriller, more caustic tone. "I want this child alive for many reasons, not the least of which is to serve as a living reminder to not be careless with the slaves. And just because I don’t trust you to care for him doesn’t mean I won’t expect you to obtain, construct, or devote your time to things he requires. If I give you an order I expect it followed and I will make good on my earlier promise to make your life a barely-living hell if you don’t."

TugMug frowned, though on some level he was still relieved. Orders or not, he was still free of the responsibility of the creature. "As if that’s anything different," the graviton grumbled back at Luna.

RedEye shook his head in disgust. "First Chilla and Alluro, then TugMug, and now you raising a child. I thought we were Lunatacs, not babysitters." He turned and stalked off, bound for the peace of his secret room, without another word.

Alluro cast the darkling a parting glance, narrowing his eyes at him for having the audacity to compare him to Luna and TugMug, and then watched Luna with the child. He wondered if she had gone completely insane or if her sudden decision hinted that the old shrew actually had a shred of feeling in her. He was still trying to decide which it was when he heard Chilla mumbling next to him.

"She listened to me," the ice woman whispered under her breath in complete shock. "For once in her life, Luna actually listened to me."

Alluro raised an eyebrow and looked from Luna to Chilla. "Oh?"

Luna glanced up at the icewalker and smiled knowingly. "Like you said, Chilla. Table manners. We wouldn’t want him to turn out like his father, would we?"