by Lisa Lace
Of course, the very notion was ludicrous. Every time he heard it, Kael couldn’t believe the incomparable foolishness of the statement. If he never produced an heir, it would mean the end of his family’s blood line – the end of a dynasty that had ruled since before recent memory. He would never be selfish or callous enough to put aside his duty for sheer bloodshed – though it seemed more often than not that the two seemed intertwined.
It was true, however, that he hadn’t taken a wife. Unlike his younger brothers, and even his favorite sister, a quarter of his life had gone by without any prospects for his betrothal. He simply hadn’t the time or patience to deal with what those who offered were proposing. They wanted him to pay favors – to grovel, beg and prostrate himself at the feet of any number of females, declaring her the light of his life and his beloved for all his years to come.
Personally, he’d rather rip out one of his enemy’s still beating hearts than concede to love everlasting. He’d seen the way it had softened his siblings. Jalil and Marc had lost any and all desire they’d had to govern – to ensure the longevity of their race – in favor of fawning over their new brides – who effectively had them wrapped around their slender female fingers.
His sister, he supposed, was better. She still wished to be involved in any and everything that involved the Garinian Empire, and nothing her husband could do or say would convince her to spend more time at home with him. As things currently stood, Kaia was heavy with child – she would deliver within the next few weeks, and still, she sat next to him at council, her lovely brow knitted in worry as she listened to the minister’s air their concerns for the coming season.
Chief among them, of course, was how many fighters they’d lost in the last campaign.
“My prince, our army has been depleted by a full quarter. For we lost many in these past, hard seasons.” Kael sat at the head of the table, dressed in finery befitting his station as he listened intently. It was, of course, Kaia who had insisted he don such a ridiculous outfit. He would much rather have come in simply wearing his dracs,
To one of the oldest representatives of his people, Kael’s answer was respectful. “We kept casualties to a minimum and did what we needed to in order to acquire territory. Does this displease you?”
“It is not the territory that displeases me, my liege. Only that we lost so many – good men, all of them.”
These men were diplomats, born and raised. It was evident in their soft skin and uncalloused palms. Of course they had lost men. If anyone was aware of the hundreds of families who were now without fathers, husbands and sons, it was Kael; however, these men had died protecting the empire they loved.
For his people, there was no mandatory stint their army required. Every man who served did it to protect his family and the families of every individual under Garinian authority. They were trained from a very young age in the art of war, and, at any time, if they didn’t wish to continue, no one forced them to.
However, ninety percent of those who enlisted in the armed forces remained enlisted until their deaths, whether by the enemy’s sword or from old age. It was ingrained in their people as a very strong sense of responsibility to those who had provided for all their present comforts – their ancestors before them – as well as towards their children, and all those who would come after them.
It was that pride that allowed them to flourish.
That, and the conquering of other races that helped to repopulate their numbers when they began to dwindle.
“Councilor’s, might I remind you that we have just conquered twelve million Remans. Within the year, I will give the mandate for repopulation, as always.” It was customary after winning a battle that a repopulation would be implemented, whereby the newest members of the empire would be bred with Garinian citizens, both to ensure peace in the new age and to ensure that Garinian blood spread to the far corners of the galaxy. The Remans case would be no different than that of hundreds before them.
“Kael, if I may.” Immediately, the prince turned to the soft-spoken woman at his side. Even from the time she’d been born, Kaia had been small compared to her mother. He towered a good foot above her, and, with her belly swollen with child, he often wondered if her pregnancy pained her. Kaia never complained. She never showed anything less but poise and calm composure to their subjects – and she was the only member of their family not cowed by the Prince’s awesome temper. It was she who often counseled him on decisions he planned to make – and how to come to an agreement when diplomacy and action seemed two opposite sides of the same coin.
Now, her large, cornflower blue eyes met his. “Of course, Kaia. Speak.”
“The Remans did not come willingly. Indeed, I can’t remember the last time a conquering took so long. I believe it would be…ill-advised to expect them to acculturate so quickly. Give it time – two moons, perhaps, with an outpost and a small standing army to maintain the peace. Then, perhaps, we can begin the process.”
For a moment, Kael was silent, considering.
What she said had merit. The Remans had fought them to the bitter end, resulting in a greater loss of life than any conflict in his lifetime. While in the end, the people had praised him for leading them to victory; there were times when he had wondered if they might not turn on him for the loss of their beloved family members. Those men had understood the commitment they had made, but did their women? Their children? He himself was committed to Garinia in every way it was possible to be committed. He lived or died with the empire, and hoped he could do it with a sword in his hand.
There was a part of him that desired very dearly to force the Remans to acclimate. They would be Garinian soon enough, and for all the blood they had cost his people, they could afford to shed some in return…but he would not take such measures. Not now. For all his people whispered behind his back, he was not quite the bloodthirsty barbarian they thought him.
At least, not today, with his sister to soften his temperament.
“I will take what you say into consideration, sister; but I offer an issue in return: If we do not use the Remans to replenish our numbers, what road shall we take? We need to repopulate immediately to prepare for future campaigns.” Indeed, once all the revelry finished, people would be looking to him for an announcement – men would be looking for wives and spoils of the lands they had conquered.
He would not like to tell them there would be none.
“Sire.” His attention was brought back to the council of four before him. The three men and one woman who mediated decisions on all matters pertaining to his people, his family, and the vast, ever-growing kingdom of Garinia.
This time, it was Councilor Erina that spoke – the only female present besides his sister. At an ancient one hundred and seventy years of age, she had seen many people conquered in her lifetime. “The princess and I have recently spoken with several exploration vessels newly returned from their latest voyages. They have found a planet at the very edge of our systems, inhabited by a more primitive form of life that we might look to investigate.”
Immediately, the prince’s mouth turned downward in a scowl. “You would suggest I begin another campaign before repopulation? The very idea is ludicrous. We haven’t enough soldiers, and I have not yet seen any information on this ‘primitive race of yours’.”
“Brother, we do not speak of a campaign.” Kaia’s calm, smooth tones interrupted his stern rebuttal. He turned to her, regal in her black and gold finery. “Our exploration team has posted reconnaissance on this planet for the last ten moons. Enough for us to assess that they are dying out. Their people are plagued by a disease for which they have no cure.”
Kael arched a brow in incredulity. “Have they no medical facilities? No doctors?”
“They have both, in spades, but it will not save them. The vast majority don’t have the genetic component required to make the entirety of their population immune. In order to become so, they would have to evolve very rapidly…or combine their DNA with
a race that has superior healing capabilities.”
Kaia fell silent, allowing the notion to sink into her brother’s mind for a brief moment.
A dying race in need of a miracle – and his own in desperate need of repopulation. They could achieve what they wanted without war or bloodshed of any kind – providing the race was advanced enough, even, to communicate with them. If he had never heard of them until this moment, it was highly improbable that they were capable of space flight or even light speed travel. Would they even understand what the Garinians were trying to offer them?
“My prince, I would remind you,” Erina spoke again, this time a measure more cautiously, “Just because this race is technologically inferior does not mean they might not be hostile. What we are proposing is merely an attempt to contact them – to gage their thoughts on the matter.”
“It’s entirely likely that they will reject us, yes,” Kaia cut in smoothly, “But somehow, I doubt it. Not with their longevity of their race on the line.”
She was right.
Kael needed not one moment more to think. “How soon can we be there?”
“If we used the cold sleep system, my prince, you could sleep the moon you require to arrive there.”
A full moon. On the outskirts of their systems indeed. There would be five hundred days lost traveling – five hundred days in which his people would look to him, and wonder why the Remans hadn’t yet joined their folds.
He would have to risk it. There was no other way. The armed forces were only at seventy five percent capacity – the lowest they had been in hundreds of moons. Others might see these numbers as an opportunity to attack – and that, he could not allow.
“I leave tomorrow.” His declaration booked no question, and none was asked. For his part, however, Kael had a mountain of questions: who were these people, at the edge of space, with not even the medical equipment to genetically alter their bodies? He would have to be briefed before he left – and then he would have to contend with the fact that he himself might have to take a wife far earlier than he’d intended.
A wife of foreign blood and questionable origins.
Chapter Two: Invasion
It was blessedly quiet in the gardens. Today, Danielle was the only botanist on duty, and so she leisurely made her way down the neat rows of plants, letting the sunshine warm her face. It seemed like ages since she’d been out. When she’d returned to work in the wake of her brother’s death, she’d been assigned to the indoor green house for weeks. Her superiors had told her it was because they trusted no one but her with their most prized specimens, but Danielle knew better.
While she’d been gone, no less than four other botanists had been stricken with Ignacious while working in the greenhouse. While she was of the personal opinion that they’d already been infected and had, perhaps, only begun to manifest symptoms while they were at work, for a length of time, no one had wanted to work in the greenhouse.
Despite the fact that it had been completely decontaminated, scrubbed for days, and pronounced virus free, her fellow botanists still avoided it like the plague. So for almost two months, she’d worked under artificial light, carefully tending to plants that might one day provide the cure to an incurable disease.
She’d finally managed to pawn the duty off on one of the new hires – a young girl willing to do any and everything to impress her superiors – to return to the fresh air. She carried no guilt, knowing full well that there was nothing in the greenhouse that could harm her.
Lovingly, she pruned a number of hybrid tulips that she had planted the spring before. They bloomed every few months, showing their vibrant blue and yellow blossoms. Managing to lift her spirits, even when it seemed like they’d remain in the dark and gloom forever. Danielle was a simple person. The two things that brought her the most joy were her family and her flowers, and now, one of them had been taken from her.
She would have to find refuge in the other.
After eight weeks, the young woman was just beginning to adjust to the idea that she would live the rest of her life alone. Of course, her friends all tried to convince her to start dating – to find a man she loved who she could settle down with. Danielle, however, had never really been one for romantic encounters. She’d spent the entirety of her life watching families ripped apart by Ignacious and was now thoroughly put off starting a family of her own.
Why would she? Just to watch it end?
She didn’t think she could bear to go through that process all over again.
That wasn’t to say she didn’t have needs. The blonde was by no means a blushing virgin. She’d had her fair share of sexual encounters – usually with immune men who believed themselves on top of the world just because they got to watch it crash and burn. They, of course, barely sufficed to give her what she needed – and even if one could give her a child, there was no guarantee that it would be immune like its parents. Thanks to a cute little mutation in the virus, it wasn’t uncommon for immune parents to watch their children linger in pain before dying quite suddenly.
Sex, for Danielle, had become something methodical – like scratching an itch.
Men could start it, but she very often ended up finishing it herself, alone in her room, panting with the fever her desire had brought about.
She’d had quite enough of that, thank you very much. She didn’t think she could bring herself to pretend to be interested in a man who thought he was better than everyone else around him – who couldn’t come to terms with the fact that their world, as they knew it, was coming to an end.
Within a hundred years, there wouldn’t be a single human left – not unless some sort of miracle occurred – and she’d stopped believing in those when her brother had been taken from her. It hurt to think of him – to remember his easy smiles and laughter – and so she simply hadn’t. She’d shut that part of herself off until she was ready to deal with it, and now, she struggled to live in the present.
At least, to the best of her ability.
Now, she buried her nose in fragrant tulips to help clear her mind. She just needed peace – a few minutes, a few hours without thinking of what might occur in her future – what might happen to humanity. Neither subject involved many pleasant prospects, so all she could pray for was the fortitude to ignore it all and smile through her pain.
After she’d finished pruning a row of tulips, she moved onto the hybrid roses – her favorites. If her mourning for her brother had brought about one good thing; it was the inspiration to create the most unique plant she’d ever spliced – a beautiful deep purple rose with gold-edged petals that would bloom for a full three months, even in the harshest of conditions.
Of course, she’d been admonished for putting her strength into a plant that had nothing to do with medical research, but the lovely buds were the highlight of her day. She spent ten hours every day working on plants that were biologically fascinating. Leaves and roots that could cure cancer, banish HIV and even reduce the effects of Alzheimer’s disease – she could take a few moments to enjoy her pet project.
Just as she was lovingly untangling the stems of some of the faster-growing buds, a deafening roar rolled over her with enough force to make her stumble back in alarm. Immediately, the young woman turned her head to the brilliant blue sky to look for the source of the din – which wasn’t immediately apparent. She searched for a good minute or so before a tiny pinprick of silver caught her attention.
She squinted, straining her eyes against the sunlight to keep the tiny object in view. It seemed to be getting bigger, but there was no way it could be an airplane. She’d never heard an airplane make such a disturbance in her life. Besides, the closer this thing got, the more she realized it was shaped completely differently from an airplane. It appeared to be one long, flat, sleek capsule, curved into a boomerang like shape. Within seconds, it was as large as a Mac truck and still growing as it hurtled neared and nearer. All at once, it was streaking over her head – almost faster than the eye coul
d see.
Danielle gaped after it.
What the hell was that thing?
It was eerily silent after the veritable sonic boom that had sounded when it had appeared, and within moments, it had disappeared in much the same fashion. Was it some new model of fighter jet the government was working on? She could only hope not. There was hardly any need for more warfare when humans were dying off at the speed of light anyway.
Danielle watched the sky for a long moment after the object had disappeared, a hundred questions racing through her mind. However, once the moment had passed, and the thrill had faded, she turned back to her roses. In a few hours, she would leave work to go home, methodically feed herself and collapse into bed, very probably suntanned from the tip of her nose to her ankles, and she would forget about all she’d just witnessed.
Or so she thought.
That evening, as Danielle was settling into bed, she happened to turn on her holocube. It was the first time she’d gotten the urge to watch something since her brother had died, and she didn’t think there could be any harm in watching the news. In a way, she had isolated herself from the world, and it was high time she returned herself to it.
Or at least kept herself informed about what went on outside the government run living post upon which she was stationed. When Danielle switched on her cube, the first image to catch her eye was a very familiar one.
It was none other than the flying craft she had seen earlier that afternoon.
For a moment, she merely gaped, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. The damn thing was on every single channel. Every major news network, every entertainment channel, all anyone could talk about was the mysterious silver boomerang that had entered earth’s atmosphere at roughly three o’clock that afternoon. It was currently parked off the coast of what had once been Italy, bobbing gently in the Mediterranean waves.