Ktak was now quite round and getting kicked regualrly by two pairs of feet. Doctor Shawn said she was progressing normally and babies looked like normal healthy humans on scans and they were due any day now. She had passed most of her duties to Gmar and was trying to not exhaust herself. It was hard, as Ree had said, but part of her was very much enjoyng it.

Stella was busy setting up a baby shower but as always, nothing was straightforward when Ames and Ktak were involved. Babies born amongst stars were not that rare but they were usually unplanned, so mothers were seldom prepared. And being literally in the middle of nowhere came with it's own limitation in shoping options. Baby showers on a spaceship served a very specific puropse for making sure the new mother would have everything they need for their offspring throug collective reuse and creativity. In short - if someone had baby things theirs had stopped using, they could be passed on and if something was still missing, it would be crafted and gifted at the party.

Usually these were human only affairs and humans, having done this often, needed little guidance. But this time Tamare wanted to participate too and this came with its own set of headaches. Most of them had no clue what size a new born baby was for starters. Tamare were relased from their pods when they were mostly independent, at around year and half in human equivalent so Stella had to check what they were thinking and doing for the event at every step to avoid oversize clothing items and inappropriate toys.

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Ames was as usual fixing things. There was a small ajoining storage room attached to Commander's quarters that Ktak had never used for anything. It was full of rubbish left by prior tennants. He had decided to fix it up for babies room. It was keeping him quite occupied for now.

When Ktak arrived to the baby shower in the big mess hall with Ames fussing around her pretty much the whole crew was waiting for her. The gift pile was enormous and Ktak thanked everybody but one gift that many had cotributed to stood out among the rest. Maintenace crew had built two cribs out of scrap materials they had found around the ship and a Tamare who dabbed in arts had decorated them in Tamare traditional colors and motives. Another who did sewing as a hobby had made blankets and sheets in similar style with Mother-tree decorations. Gmar had contributed two baby mobiles with sparkly spaceship figurines. Ktak kept returning to them to admire and touch them.

The human in her was so full of happiness it was leaking out through her eyes. The party was just wrapping up when Ktak felt a contraction and disovered herself to be standing in a puddle. She looked at it confused for a momment, and then yelled "Dr Shawn!" Everyone looked around startled and then let Dr Shawn through. She took one look at the situation and nodded. "Perfect timing. Lets go to med bay." and led Ktak away.

Ames rushed after them.