Bride (The Unity Book 3)
Page 1
The Unity
Book III
Bride
By Gilbert M. Stack
Amazon Edition
Copyright 2021 by Gilbert M. Stack
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Table of Contents
Bride
Chapter One: It’s Time for You to Consummate Your Marriage
Chapter Two: You Have the Gall to Speak of Honor
Chapter Three: You Might Have Physical Problems
Chapter Four: She’s a Tempestuous Personality
Chapter Five: Can You Imagine the Embarrassment?
Chapter Six: The Possibility before Us Is Uncharted Territory
Chapter Seven: It’s a Question of Tactics
Chapter Eight: This Thete Is Your Lover?
Chapter Nine: This Is All Too Big
Chapter Ten: There’s Good and Bad
About the Author
Other Works by Gilbert M. Stack
Contact Gilbert M. Stack
Bride
Chapter One
It’s Time for You to Consummate Your Marriage
“Excuse me, Ms. Delling. It’s time.”
Jewel didn’t immediately realize that she was the woman the Armenite officer was addressing. She’d been married less than an hour and the idea that she was no longer simply Ms. Sapphira as she’d been born, or even Ms. Aurora, the name she’d assumed when she ran away from home, was still strange to her. So she kept speaking to her old crewmates Ana Yang and Meg Falco until she realized that they were no longer looking at her but at a person standing directly behind her.
“So you’re guess is as good as mine about—what is it?”
Jewel turned to see what her two companions were looking at.
Beside her, an Armenite woman with close-cropped dark hair stood expecting an answer. She wore one of the uniforms which looked military but actually designated some branch of the civil service. Jewel couldn’t remember which one. She hadn’t needed to be able to remember details like this when her bioware was active. Jewel touched the faceted diamond-like computer chips which had been surgically implanted into the light brown flesh of her temple. The Armenites had shut the system down when they’d taken her into custody and it couldn’t help her now.
Suddenly, Jewel remembered that her name was now Delling—at least under the customs of the Armenite Hegemony. “Oh, you’re speaking to me. I didn’t realize. What exactly is it time for?”
Across the small cafeteria of the heavy cruiser, Righteous Lightning, Jewel could see her new husband looking solemn as her annoying parents talked at him. He was a strangely handsome man—strangely because his exposed flesh was adorned in spiraling tribal tattoos that added a primitive sense of menace to what would otherwise have been classically dark good looks. The blue-black of the broad and thin bands threw his face into perpetual shadow which made it very difficult for Jewel to tell what he was thinking—although she couldn’t imagine that he was enjoying himself much when she considered who was monopolizing his attention.
“It’s time for you to consummate your marriage,” the Armenite woman explained in the most matter of fact of fashions.
Ana began to choke on her drink causing Meg to pound her on her back to help her clear her airways.
The Armenite officer facing Jewel did not spare even a glance at the choking woman, saving all of her attention for Jewel who was more than a little outraged by the woman’s statement. “Excuse me?”
“It’s time for you to consummate your marriage,” the officer repeated.
The things that these Armenites would come straight out and say would never cease to amaze Jewel. “We’re in the middle of the reception. We haven’t eaten yet or cut the cake, and frankly it’s not even 1200 hours. What is your hurry?” And what the hell business is it of yours when Kole and I have sex for the first time, she wanted to add, but the Armenites were a strange people and she really didn’t want to hear the answer to that particular question.
The prospect of having sex with Kole made Jewel very nervous. Despite having been engaged to him for her entire life, she’d literally met the man little more than an hour ago and they still hadn’t had a private conversation. She didn’t love him and she wasn’t comfortable with the thought of being alone with him much less having sex with him.
To make matters even worse, Erik, the man she was actually in love with, was also here at the reception and Jewel couldn’t help but feel that going off with her husband to consummate their marriage was akin to betraying her first and only boyfriend.
“The marriage is not legal until it is consummated,” the woman explained. “It’s in the interests of both parties to ascertain if this contract will be validated as soon as possible.”
Irritation consumed Jewel. Next, she thought, she’s going to tell me we have to prove we’ve consummated it by having sex on a table in the middle of this party. She needed to put a stop to this right now and to do that she needed to start with accountability. “Just what is your name and function here?”
“I am Foreign Liaison Captain Kae Wynne under orders to make certain that the terms of the marriage contract are fulfilled.”
Jewel’s idle speculation about public sex graduated into a genuine concern.
“And there’s some reason that we can’t wait until this evening to consummate our union—all of ten or fourteen hours from now—like the rest of the civilized galaxy?”
Captain Wynne bristled, while Ana and Meg looked on at the debate in utter fascination.
“The senior Empyreals will be leaving on the Vigilance in two hours,” the captain informed her. “It is important that they know if the relationship between the House of Delling and the Khaba Cartel will be severed or sustained by that time.”
Jewel threw her hands up in disgust. “That is absolutely ridiculous.” She decided that if she were to resolve this situation with a minimum of embarrassment she needed to go to higher authority. So she turned away from the captain and scanned the room until she spotted Physician General Ina Adel. She wasn’t hard to identify in the crowd of uniforms because she was one of only four people present with the blue-black spiraling tattoos of an Empyreal covering her face.
Without another word to the captain, Jewel strode over to the Physician General who broke off her conversation with the captain of the Righteous Lightning to speak with her.
“Ms. Delling,” Adel greeted her. “Congratulations again on your nuptials. May they result in a long and beneficial union of the House of Delling and the Khaba Cartel and guide you on your personal path to ascension.”
Adel’s greeting off-footed Jewel both by its apparently genuine warmth and its peculiar phrasing. As far as she’d been able to tell, ascension was a very particular term among the Armenites which referred to the elevation of an ordinary Armenite citizen into the ranks of the Empyreals—the ruling caste of the Hegemony of Armen. While Adel had used it in reference to Jewel before she couldn’t see how it could possibly apply to her. Perhaps they viewed her marriage to an Empyreal as a form of ascension in itself. In any event, this was not the time to worry about it.
She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the foreign liaison captain. “This woman has just informed me that for my marriage to be, what would you say, fully legal? For my marriage to be fully legal, Kole and I need to consummate
it before you and Rear Admiral Delling and Justiciar General Farl leave the Righteous Lightning.”
Adel had evidently grown use to Jewel questioning basic Armenite procedures for the question didn’t trouble her. “That isn’t precisely correct. Without consummation, there is no marriage as there must be at least the possibility of children to bring the relationship between House Delling and the Khaba Cartel into the next generation. While consummation does not technically have to be done within the narrow time frame which the captain has outlined, it would be most convenient for Ren, Hoyt and me to know if the marriage will be upheld before we return to the Hegemony.”
This just got more and more peculiar to Jewel’s way of thinking. “And is there some reason to doubt that Kole and I will have sex? It’s not like he’s gay, right? You told me that for genetic reasons you expect Armenites to have a child before they get married. It took me a while but I finally figured out that applies to Kole as well.” And no, Jewel was not in any way comfortable with that knowledge but there wasn’t anything she could do about it so she kept on making her point. “So I don’t see what the problem is. Kole has presumably been proved and I’ve been through so many medical scans that there shouldn’t be any doubt as to my fertility.” At least no one had told her if there was any doubt. Why let them get married if they didn’t think the two of them could do the job?
It was difficult to read an Empyreal’s facial expressions due to the heavy tattooing, but Jewel thought that she saw Adel pull back a little and her eyes shifted from left to right before she reasserted herself. “Come with me, Jewel. Captain Wynne you will lead us to the bridal chamber where I intend to have a private conversation with Ms. Delling. Make certain no one joins us for at least twenty minutes.”
The Armenite officer nodded once in affirmation of her orders and took off at a brisk pace across the cafeteria-turned-reception-hall. Physician General Ina Adel immediately started after her, apparently assuming that Jewel would accompany her.
Jewel sighed but did not immediately follow in the Empyreal’s wake. Across the room, Erik Gunnarson, Jewel’s blond-haired first-and-only lover started toward her. He had a splint on his right hand and a bleak and yet reckless expression on his face which did not bode well for the continued calm of the reception.
Jester Carter, another one of Jewel’s former shipmates, caught Erik by the bicep and held him back, whispering furiously at his former superior officer. Jewel offered him a wry lopsided smile of thanks, then realized that the Empyreal had hesitated in the doorway, waiting for her.
There really was nothing to be done but to follow after her.
****
The bridal suite was a cabin very similar to the one that Jewel had been using on the Righteous Lighting since she was first let out of sickbay. The only difference was that it was slightly larger, hosting a very small table in addition to the bed and desk. Since the Armenites frowned on luxuries, Jewel assumed that the table had a practical function. Perhaps the cabin had been commandeered from one of the Righteous Lightning’s senior officers and the table was used for small conferences.
Physician General Adel followed the foreign liaison captain into the room and immediately sat herself at the end of the table. “That will be all, Captain Wynne. And remember, I require twenty minutes of privacy with Ms. Delling without interruption.”
The pseudo-military captain saluted sharply, turned on her heel, and strode past Jewel and back into the corridor. She wasn’t precisely marching as the Armenite’s understood the term, but it was a very regular and purposeful stride by the standards of the rest of the galaxy.
The door closed behind her.
“Sit down, Ms. Delling, I need to explain a highly confidential matter to you. You’re undoubtedly the first non-Armenite to ever have to be told this and I suspect it will come as an unpleasant surprise.”
Jewel sat at the table across from Adel wondering what new problem she was about to be confronted with. She’d been married to an Armenite for less than an hour and she was already pretty tired of the entire race.
“You asked me at the reception if Lieutenant Delling was gay.”
Jewel bristled. Kole had better not be—
“He isn’t,” Adel stated quite firmly. “We Armenites are not troubled by homosexuality and lesbianism so long as the men and women so inclined continue to do their duty to procreate the species, but Lieutenant Delling does not fall into this category.”
Jewel almost felt relieved. Being married to a gay man in a monogamous Armenite relationship would have been horrific. Erik and she hadn’t had sex many times, but Jewel was really starting to like and look forward to it. The thought of being bound to a guy who could barely force it up to do his duty simply was not appealing. “Then what is the problem? Why the rush to consummate?”
An aura of discomfort penetrated the mask of tattoos on Adel’s face. When she answered Jewel’s question it was with an apparent non sequitur. “I understand that Justiciar General Farl briefly discussed with you the true manner in which your father forged his relationship with the House of Delling.”
This time it was Jewel’s turn to grimace. All of her life she’d been regaled with the very un-Cartelite story of how her father heroically rescued an Armenite ship with eighteen Empyreal children on board. Empyreals formed the mysterious caste at the peak of Armenite society. Her father’s selfless actions had been generously rewarded by the Armenites with extensive contracts to refine raw armenium—the fuel that made faster-than-light travel possible—the fuel upon which all of modern civilization depended. Jewel’s father had leveraged his contracts into a significant share of the ownership of the increasingly powerful Khaba Cartel and a fabulous fortune. It was a beautiful story and, as Jewel had learned two days ago, completely and utterly fictitious. Her father was a villain, not a hero, but with hundreds of thousands of livelihoods at stake Jewel had still completed the contract between Khaba and Delling by marrying Kole this morning.
None of which explained to Jewel what the true beginnings of the Khaba-Delling relationship had to do with when Kole and she would consummate their marriage. “The justiciar-general did explain that my father didn’t rescue any children.” She was still reluctant to mention out loud that her father had betrayed an entire planet to the militaristic Armenites in exchange for his armenium contracts.
Adel continued to look uncomfortable. “And did he explain why your father’s fictitious account was so absurd?”
Jewel frowned. “Please don’t take this opportunity to tell me how greedy and selfish the Cartelites are. I’m more than familiar with the stereotypes and I know better than you how true they are in the case of my father.”
Adel shook her head. “That’s not the point I’m trying to make. Are you aware of why your story is so absurd from the Armenite perspective?”
Jewel thought about that for a moment. She knew very little about the ways in which Armenite’s raised their children other than that they took them from their mothers at the age of five to be educated as proper citizens. Then out of the blue something else she knew about the Armenites hit her. “Oh, Stars,” she whispered. “It’s so obvious now that I think of it. Empyreals aren’t born, they’re made.”
“We call the process ascension,” Adel confirmed.
“I knew—I mean, when I saw that Kole had become Empyreal, I knew that it was possible to be promoted—”
“Ascended,” Adel corrected her.
Jewel edited herself without slowing down. “I knew it was possible for an adult to ascend, but I’ve heard that story about my father so many times—the whole galaxy has heard it so many times—that it just never occurred to me that Empyreals couldn’t be born too. I mean, we think of you as a caste somewhat analogous to the elites of the Cartel Worlds.”
Adel grimaced at this description of her.
“And most elites want to pass on their power and their wealth to their children,” Jewel finished.
“I’m sure that you are beg
inning to realize that the differences between we Empyreals and the ruling class of your home polity are rather extreme,” Adel told Jewel in a voice that made it clear that she hadn’t appreciated the comparison.
Jewel agreed that there were big differences between the Cartelites and the Empyreals but she didn’t necessarily agree that the Empyreals were better than her people. Her voice also revealed her displeasure with Adel. “So what does this all have to do with Kole and me?”
Adel became all business-like again. “What I’m about to tell you is a classified secret in the Hegemony of Armen. I need your word that you will not share this information with any non-Empyreal.”
Jewel wondered what the penalty for revealing this secret might be, but what she asked instead was, “And you’re willing to share this with me, why?”
“Because it has a direct impact on you and Kole,” Adel said.
Jewel didn’t like promising before she knew what was being asked of her, but she agreed anyway. “All right, you have my word. What is the secret?”
“I want you to understand first, that ascension to the status of Empyreal is the greatest honor in the Hegemony. It has spiritual, biological and political implications. There are currently only about thirty thousand Empyreals in the entire Hegemony.”
Thirty thousand seemed like a lot of people at first, until Jewel began comparing it to the probable size of the pure Armenite population—the descendants of the original colonists, not the peoples of the worlds they had conquered. She’d never seen a hard and fast population estimate, but if you assumed a mere three billion of them that would make the Empyreals only one-thousandth of one percent of the citizens of the Hegemony—and there were probably a good deal more than three billion Armenites.
“That number is rather small,” Jewel agreed.
“Especially when you consider that literally every citizen competes from their first year in school to become an Empyreal. Only the very best of the best has that opportunity and most—more than ninety-seven percent—who are selected to try fail out of the program.”