"Swallow, Mo ghrá," Abaddon murmured. "It will ease the pressure in your ears."
Sarvenaz's lips curved up in a smile, eyes still scrunched shut, as the ride became smoother. This was her third round-trip to Haven-3. While he knew it terrified her; the people, the technology, the strangeness of it all, she was determined not to be left behind on the Jehoshaphat. Perhaps he was a selfish old man, used to giving orders and having them obeyed, but never in his 635 years had one of his soldiers burst into tears at the thought of being separated from him.
Who did he think he was kidding? He'd brought her along because he could not bear to spend time apart from her!
Her eyes opened. Her pupils were wide with fear, but also exhilaration. Her grip loosened, no longer cutting off the circulation, but still holding his hand. Every time he stared into those beautiful, mahogany-brown eyes, sometimes he forgot to breathe. She reached up, as she often did, to trace the scar that ran from his eyebrow to his chin. His battle injuries pleased her, and that pleased him.
"Almost home, Mo ghrá," Abaddon tucked her more tightly against the length of his torso, automatically checking to make sure her safety harness was secure even though he must have checked the straps a dozen times already. He'd had to adapt a seat to carry her, her smaller frame and lack of wings making it difficult to strap her in. When frightened, she preferred to remain ensconced in the safety of his feathers, so he'd adapted the jump seats accordingly so he could take her along. His hand slid down to caress the swell of her abdomen and make sure the lap belt was safely tucked beneath their daughter.
"Shake … very bad," Sarvenaz said. "Like boat at sea. Sarvenaz shut eyes on boat, too. Wait for storm to pass."
"Tell me about these boats, Mo ghrá?"
He asked questions because teaching him about the ways of her people set her at ease whenever she was in a strange location, but also because he was intently curious. He had freed many planets in his tenure in the military, but this would be the first time he truly cared what happened to the people of the world he freed beyond anything other than an abstract victory to be added to the tally marks he'd had painted on the outer hull of the Jehoshaphat.
"Alashiya have many boats," Sarvenaz frowned, as though the memory eluded her. "Round. Like Haven." She pointed out the window at the retreating orb. She still had a hard time grasping the concept of a planet in space, so he'd finally explained it to her as an island in an ocean. Alashiya was what her people called the land they lived upon, and as best he could tell, it appeared to be a fairly sizeable island.
"We sell … metal. Not silver like sword or gold. Different color. Red-gold. Make pretty necklaces, but also used to put hard tip on spear."
"You have a metal you can sharpen like my sword?" Abaddon asked. From what she'd told him so far, they had no such technology.
Sarvenaz shook her head, causing the rivulets of curls that peeked out from her headscarf to quake like soft downy under feathers. He could not resist the impulse to reach up and curl one of the ebony locks around his finger.
"Metal is soft," Sarvenaz's mahogany eyes glittered with a hint of mischief. "Like gold. Not hard like sword. Only not rare like gold. Make so tip of javelin not shatter. Less heavy than stone spear tip."
Abaddon's mouth turned up into a rare smile. Sarvenaz understood that talk of weaponry was more seductive to him than if a hundred females danced naked before him. Her hand slipped down to caress the hilt of his sword, a naughty metaphor for some other sword she wished to caress had they not been in the presence of his crewmen. He shifted as that second sword swelled in anticipation of the pleasure they would share later, once he got his armada launched in the direction of the Sata'anic border. Sarvenaz was a huntress as well, though it was his heart she had taken as her prize.
"Did your people use these metal-tipped spears you describe to hunt lions?" Abaddon asked. "Or the stone-tipped ones."
Sarvenaz frowned. Her eyes crinkled in concentration, but the memory would not come free. Abaddon ran his thumb across the corner of her mouth and laid a tender kiss upon her temple.
"It's okay, Mo ghrá," Abaddon reassured her. "We know the name of your village and I suspect it is on an island. As soon as we find your homeworld, we'll locate it. You have my word."
Whatever the Hades the old dragon had done to wipe the location of her planet from her mind, it had left her able to speak and function, but when it came to what defenses the Sata'an Empire had stationed there, what the stars looked like from that portion of space to give him a hint on where it may lay, or any but the most vague political system or her own family of origin, Sarvenaz could not remember. Nor could the wives of any of the other hybrids who had come forward. So far as the Alliance knew, nobody had that kind of technology except for She-who-is.
Sarvenaz looked out the small, round portal. The pilot had shifted the shuttle to line up with the Jehoshaphat, which still orbited Haven-3, guns aimed at any who might threaten the Parliamentary government. They were taking a risk, redeploying his ship out into the borderlands to seize back territories which had once belonged to the Third Empire, but Abaddon worried less about Hashem making a direct move against the governing body which had usurped him and more concerned about the subtle political moves the Emperor would no doubt make to recapture the hearts of the people who had just rejected him.
"Home," Sarvenaz pointed out the window at the Jehoshaphat which grew larger as they lined up to land in one of her four launch bays.
His heart beat faster as it always did whenever he caught sight of his first love, his ship, his steed, the Judgment of God. Was she still aptly named, this flagship of the Air Force who had fought back Shay'tan so many times? Yes. He thought so. Just because he had rejected Hashem's policies as his sovereign did not mean he had lost complete faith in the man as a god. Sometimes, you needed someone with a long view of things, which was why he had stuck around long after he'd become eligible to retire.
"Home," Abaddon pulled Sarvenaz closer.
Her lips curved up in a knowing smile. He'd tried putting into words the way he felt each time he returned to his ship, but with Sarvenaz no words were necessary. She just knew what he was feeling, and he her, as though each emotion which accompanied a thought was shared between the both of them. She had grown to love the Jehoshaphat as well, though to her it was a sanctuary, a place where his crewmen gave her a level of respect that seemed familiar.
Who had she been before Shay'tan had wiped her memories of all but the most trivial thing? The daughter, perhaps, of a disgraced leader? Sata'anic custom mandated the beheading any general who committed an egregious military blunder, casting their wives and offspring out into the street where no man of good repute would touch them. It would be just like the old dragon to send him such a veiled insult. Well, Sarvenaz would have the last laugh when he showed up to wrest control of her homeworld from the old dragon!
"Once I win back your planet for you, Mo ghrá," Abaddon whispered in her ear, "I will make a present of it for you and lay your world like a bauble at your pretty feet."
Sarvenaz's eyes flashed with delight. Like the Jehoshaphat, she was no dove, but bloodthirsty like a hawk. What would their daughter be like, a child of two warriors? He nuzzled aside her headscarf so he could nip her neck as the pilot flew the shuttle in for a landing.
He scrutinized his first-wife, the inanimate one, as he always did whenever he flew into the launch bay. Did she look ready and strong? Was there any sign of wear or subspace decay in the outer hull? Did the cuneiform letters with her name emblazoned on the side strike the necessary fear.
Sarvenaz looked upon her sister-wife and squeezed his hand. She had grown to love this ship as well. She waited as he kneeled upon disembarking, her hand resting upon his shoulder the same way that he placed his hand upon the Jehoshaphat's deck.
"At last we go hunting again, beag gorm [little falcon]," Abaddon whispered to his first wife. "Just as I promised you we would. Feel, now, the engineers spooling up your
hyperdrives and the men who lavish attentions upon your weapons systems. We're going after the old dragon himself this time, beag gorm. Fitting prey for a brave warrior queen."
Sarvenaz squeezed his shoulder. He rose and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow as he moved through the ranks which had already assembled here, knowing what Parliament's edict would be. The moment Lucifer had been arrested he'd put all ships on high alert, not certain whether the attack would be an internal one, Jophiel's missing ships as well as any she might rally to follow the Eternal Emperor instead of him, or the more likely threat of an external foray into Alliance territory by Shay'tan and his minions.
Abaddon let go of her arm, only reluctantly, to stand before both his men, and the video uplinks to every ship in all four branches of the military..
"As we anticipated," Abaddon said, "the people of this great Alliance cannot let this affront against our Prime Minister go unpunished. This is a limited incursion to take back territories the old dragon seized while our emperor and god was away. Perhaps the human homeworld lies within those territories, perhaps not? But it will be a fitting tribute to our missing leader if we seize back the kingdom his real father left for him and incorporate its planets back into the new Alliance our Prime Minister sired."
The men and women under his command, most of them not even hybrids, gave a rousing war cry.
The Jehoshaphat hummed beneath his feet like a predator whose muscles bunched in anticipation of a leap after a prey animal, his crewmen bustling around him as his second-in-command gave a call of general quarters and radiomen relayed the coordinates each battle group was to leap into to begin their grid-search of the former Third Empire.
His crewmen waited for him to relay the order to set loose the hyperdrives of the Jehoshaphat and aim his eager huntress towards the now-Sata'anic territory. Abaddon stared at his men, and the monitor which waited to relay his command to every ship in the Alliance fleet, and gave his wife's hand a squeeze.
"Let's go grab the dragon by the tail!"
Chapter 91
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.11 AE
Alliance: Haven-1
Angelic Air Force Brigadier-General Raphael Israfa
Raphael
Raphael leaned over the three-dimensional hologram they were compiling of the Orion-Cygnus spur, tapping each new planet they'd recently discovered via the intricate search grid fanned across the width of the spiral arm. It was not a map which would make a cartographer proud, but never had so much territory been mapped so quickly. Dozens of previously unknown worlds were highlighted in green, the color used to denote habitable planets. None of them, unfortunately, was Earth.
Raphael frowned. Since Jophiel's cryptic message ordering him not to come three weeks ago, the only communication they'd received since then was a needle carrying a single handwritten note signed with the Emperor's own bold flourish. The message had been cryptic.
'Keep calm and carry on…'
He missed the small personal gifts he and Jophiel had been sneaking into the needle's marsupium for each other. One of Uriel's molted red baby feathers. Interesting shells found on a newly discovered planet. A photograph of Jophiel as a young cadet. His golden feathers rustled with his instinct to go to his family, a need he could not indulge so long as the Emperor needed him here. Even with the armada the Emperor had laid at his disposal, it could be a long time before they found Mikhail.
His comms pin chirped.
"Sir?" Colonel Glicki called from the bridge. "Supreme Commander-General Jophiel's needle just appeared outside our ship. They're opening the missile port for it to come in now."
Even through the mechanical lilt added by her voice-range enhancement box, he could hear Glicki's excitement. It had been a long three weeks incommunicado.
Raphael resisted the urge to fly. The corridors of the Light Emerging were wide, but not so wide as to accommodate an Angelic's thirty-foot wingspan without clobbering whichever unfortunate crewman stood in his way. Flight was what the apiary was built for. He burst into the needle's den, his face almost hurting from the broad grin which displayed his dimple. He held up his wings so as not to get his feathers crushed by Jophiel's needle bumping noses with his needle in a happy reunion akin to two puppies rough-housing.
"Hello, little buddy," Raphael held down his palm so Jophiel's needle could rub its nose, if it was a nose, nobody was really certain. His needle, being jealous, demanded equal attention. It took a moment for the two creatures to settle down enough for him to command it to open up its marsupium. They clustered around the needle like children at a birthday party, eager to see what lay concealed within a colorfully wrapped gift.
"We've got mail!" the needle-handler exclaimed. Private Kurg-it puffed out his throat in the manner all Delphiniums did whenever they wished to display enhanced emotion and gave Jophiel's needle a grateful carroak.
A thankful sigh escaped Raphael's throat at the sight of the marsupium brimming with tablet devices. Each tablet was clearly labeled, naming which ship it was destined for, and hopefully containing messages for each crewman in this armada. Morale had sunk the last few weeks with no messages from home, especially amongst the non-hybrid crewmen who had been raised in families.
"See that these get distributed right away," Raphael handed over the spoils to the two needle handlers.
He patted Jophiel's needle to communicate he was pleased. Both needles bumped against his hands, determined that each one get patted by him equally like two siblings vying for a parent's attention. The time he'd spent playing with his own son had taught him the creatures preferred everyday frolic, patting, and rough-housing more than a thousand golden medals.
He waited as the two needle-handlers unloaded the marsupium until they got to the tablet device located at the bottom of the pile.
His…
The needles bumped at his hand one last time before allowing him to escape with his tablet in hand. He waited until he got back to his personal quarters before queuing up the first message blinking for his attention. Jophiel's beautiful, ethereal features came onto the display. She was dressed casually, not in her regular uniform, with her long silver-blonde hair trailing loosely behind her back like a school girl. A lump rose in his throat of longing.
"Raphael," her expression seemed troubled. "We have much to discuss. Uriel is fine. As soon as you can secure your ship and hand things over to Colonel Glicki's capable hands, get into your needle and order it to follow this one back to where I can be found. Take both needles. You're going to need them."
Raphael touched the flat screen even though this was a one-way transmission. He ached so badly for missing her that sometimes it felt as though his heart would break.
Scrolling through the rest of his messages to make sure there weren't conflicting orders which could not wait for however long he would be gone, usually just half a day, he tied up loose ends and handed over command to Colonel Glicki, who came down to the needle bay to see him off.
"At least you get to go home and see your son," Glicki whirred her wings in laughter as he handed over a tablet device with a laundry list of 'mission impossibles' that needed to be checked into before the next week's check-in. "I'm almost out of my father's home brew. Do you think you could find a few square inches in that needle of yours to smuggle me back a bottle?"
Raphael laughed. The potent green liquor the Mantoids brewed was renowned for its flavor … and punch.
"I already have to strip!" Raphael had strip down to his socks and undershirt in order to cram his large frame into a marsupium which had not been designed to carry a passenger his size. "You'll just have to ask your father for his secret recipe so you can experiment with it in that alcohol still you claim you don't have hidden in the waste recycling room."
Glicki took the second tablet device Jophiel had included with her name on it. As soon as she queued up the screen, she gave a high-pitched chirrup which was her species equivalent of a fan girl *squee*.
"The whole ser
ies? All seven seasons of them?" Glicki's wings whirred with delight. "Including six episodes which haven't aired yet? The Emperor must have pulled some strings to get access to these!"
Like most Mantoids, Colonel Glicki could drink more alcohol than an entire battalion of Angelics without being afflicted, but she had one teeny-tiny addiction. Mantoids were renowned for their action-packed, romantically sappy soap operas, including the one Glicki now held in her hand. The entire galaxy tuned in each week to this particular one, including, it was said, Emperor Shay'tan.
"Jophiel thought the crew could use a morale booster," Raphael said. "The Emperor secured rebroadcast rights so we can play them here within the fleet as many times as we like, but I suggest you make the crew wait to watch the newer episodes on the same day and time they normally would air so they have something to look forward to."
"Yes, Sir!" Glicki gave him a cheerful salute.
Raphael secured his oxygen mask, since needles only provided cargo space, not life support, and lowered himself into the marsupium of his own needle. There was a voice command module attached to his mask, but the needle was more responsive to hand signals than the artificial beeps and boops they used to translate the few simple commands it could understand. He patted the needle twice to signal it to close the cargo doors and fought the instinct to fight his way out as it pinned his arms and wings so tightly around him it was hard to breathe.
"Let's follow your friend back to Jophiel," Raphael said into the mask.
The needle wiggled around him as the handlers let out both via the missile silo. As soon as the second needle cleared, he felt the strange dislocation as the creature leaped between the dimensions. Needles were like carrier pigeons, preferring to leap back and forth between known 'roosts.' Raphael expected to wait several minutes to be escorted inside the Eternal Light, but the needle opened immediately.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 90