In many places, they called it jumping the broom. In Gospeck, it was jumping the gun.

Gospeck was a small colony in an out-of-the-way system, small enough where babies were a welcome and needed occurrence. They were a hard-luck sort of place, a poorly placed colony where the alien creatures attacked with no warning and no pattern. They needed everyone that could to carry babies, as fast as they could, or the colony would die.

They had little time for brooms and no time to wait for proof of pregnancy. They jumped the gun for two-year contracts, one to carry and one to protect, and hoped for the best.

written to Today’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt. In generic-space-colony ‘verse.

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