B is for Beatrice

(Note: It's best that you at least glance at my A to Z Plan before reading unless you want to go into this story completely cold.  Also, if you happen to be British, please tell me all the things I inevitably got wrong in this story, as far as word choice goes.)

June 24, 2056

            There weren’t supposed to be children on the moon.  Beatrice and Arran had been told this several times before they boarded the shuttle to the Drake Lunar Base, both by UKSA and NASA.  But Beatrice couldn’t help it.  She had given up on conceiving months before she and her husband had been selected to participate in this venture with the Americans.  Nonetheless, thirty-nine weeks after landing at the Base, Beatrice delivered the first baby born outside of Earth’s atmosphere.

            Luna woke up wailing on the morning the aliens came.  She had just been fully weaned, so Beatrice cradled her in her arms and rocked her back to sleep.  Luna’s kip lasted perhaps twenty minutes before the sound of heavy footsteps outside of her door had her crying again.

            Arran didn’t even stir in his sleep beside Beatrice.  She set Luna down beside him and opened the door to have a butchers, dressed only in her nightie.

            “What is going on?” she asked Jarod, one of the Base’s septics, as he hustled by.

            “Not sure, going to see.”

            Beatrice ran after him, navigating the halls as best she could.  It wasn’t often that she was beyond the life sciences laboratory on the airlock’s side of the Base.

            Jarod stopped dead in his tracks in front of her.  He looked up at the head of a giant, snake-like beast.  It must have been thirty meters long.

            The beast unhinged its jaw and said, “hello,” sounding as if it were gargling marbles.

            While Jarod continued staring at the beast in silence, Beatrice spun around and broke into a footballer’s pace to cradle her baby, expecting it to be her final chance to do so.