For 635 years he'd served the Alliance, loyally, without question, and when that day came to fight a battle too great to win, he would die for the Alliance. Gladly.
Retirement? Where in Hades would he go? Born into the military, having served his entire life in the military, and already having buried every Angelic he'd ever cared about, the last thing Abaddon wanted was to be put out to pasture; to twiddle his thumbs while the Alliance he'd spent his entire life defending ran itself off a cliff. If their entire species was about to journey into that dark night, Abaddon intended to make the journey with them. To go down in a blaze of glory so bright that posterity would forever remember his name. Abaddon. The Destroyer. Angelic of death. A name given to him not by his own military forces, but by Shay'tan himself after he'd punished the old dragon with a particularly brutal defeat.
“Prime Minister Lucifer,” General Abaddon stepped off his shuttle onto Lucifer’s flagship and gave the Alliances highest ranking civilian authority a grudging salute. “What is this urgent matter that can’t be discussed over regular communication channels?”
“Please,” every aspect of Lucifer's demeanor was coached to reflect his status so that Abaddon wouldn't forget who outranked whom. “This matter is too sensitive to discuss in the open."
Abaddon regarded the charismatic adopted son of their Emperor with cool grey eyes, giving him neither fawning adoration nor disgust. Lucifer was a force of nature; manipulative, brilliant, flamboyant, flawed. He'd served the boy-prince after the Emperor had disappeared because that had been Hashem's will, but over the centuries Lucifer had earned Abaddon's grudging acceptance. Unlike the Emperor, Lucifer had never made the mistake of taking the military for granted.
“Zepar,” Lucifer called on his comms pin as they walked, his demeanor devoid of warmth, “have you gift wrapped the package?”
“The treatment appears to have worked,” Zepar’s muffled voice could be heard crackling over the comms pin. “She will be compliant.”
“Send her down." Lucifer scrutinized Abaddon with the intensity of a cobra watching a mouse it was about to consume for dinner.
Abaddon had known Lucifer for as long as he'd been alive; disapproved of his well-known appetites nearly as long. But like him, Lucifer cared first, and foremost, for the Alliance he'd birthed in the Emperor's long absence. The cold, calculating stare Lucifer gave him now, however, made even The Destroyer shudder.
“General Abaddon,” Lucifer's eerie silver eyes glittered like twin moons as they took their seats. “I have a gift for you.”
Two Angelic guards guided an elaborately dressed humanoid into the room. A female? Bah! With Lucifer it was always something female! Lucifer sat across the table, tapping his pencil to the beat of the Alliance National Anthem while he waited for Abaddon to figure out whatever stunt he was up to now.
It took a moment for Abaddon's brain to process what his eyes refused to see. His eyes widened as he realized what he looked at.
“Is that…???” Abaddon trailed off. His falcon-grey wings jutted out with surprise as he rose to his feet and nearly knocked over his chair.
“Yes,” Lucifer donned a wolf-like grin. “I found the root race.”
“Where?!!" Abaddon stalked around the attractive, brown-haired female, his wings betraying the awe he kept from showing on his face. His sword-hand trembled as he touched her Angelic wedding dress, or at least what used to be a wedding dress until the Emperor had forbidden them to form permanent unions. Abaddon was one of the few still-serving members of the military old enough to have actually seen one.
“They were right where Hashem left them,” Lucifer waved his hand in a contemptuous manner. “You know how my father is. Always starting little seed worlds and then forgetting where he put them. Ooopsies! We’re all dying out and father forgets he ceded a thirteenth seed world to Shay’tan during the last galactic war. Heaven forbid he should have to kiss the old dragon's scaly tail and concede a couple of moves in that chess game of theirs to save our species.”
Abaddon's lip curled in a snarl at Lucifer's flippant belittlement of their species' predicament. His nostrils flared as he clamped down on his anger.
“He’s known where they were all along?” Abaddon growled. Amongst a species that prided itself on self-control, The Destroyer was infamous for his temper.
“Of course he has,” Lucifer said. “It was Shay’tan who brought their existence to my attention. Not that the old dragon is doing it for our benefit. You know how Shay’tan is. Everything comes at a price.”
“Why didn't Hashem have me send in a spy ship to see if the root stock was still there?” Abaddon asked.
“He knew exactly where they were all along,” Lucifer said. “He abandoned them to die when the Sata’an Empire annexed their homeworld. Their planet doesn't have any interesting resources, so Shay’tan simply ignored them until he learned the root stock itself is a valuable commodity”
“Valuable?” Abaddon said. “What you’ve just found is priceless!”
“Ahem,” Lucifer coughed, skillfully changing the direction of the conversation onto the topic he wished to discuss. “It's my understanding that, like me, you've suffered a few … delays?”
“That's none of your business!” Abaddon growled. The issue of his inability to sire offspring was a very sore topic.
“Well, here is my solution to that problem,” Lucifer ignored the harsh tone. “I have mated with three of them, with three happy results now on the way.”
"Three? At once?"
Abaddon circled the female, examining the pliant, drugged woman as she stared off into space, swaying to an internal tune. It was no secret Lucifer had met no success reproducing despite heroic, some said inhuman, efforts to spread his seed around to as many Angelic females as possible. News that after 225 years he'd suddenly sired three offspring was an effective sales pitch for whatever he was selling.
“She appears as the Emperor does," Abaddon said at last. "Without wings.”
“This is the root-stock the Emperor used to create our race,” Lucifer shrugged. “Because they evolved naturally, without interference from either emperor, they don't share our issues.”
“Will they breed true?” Abaddon asked.
“That, I can't tell you,” Lucifer said. “My own little buns in the oven have yet to make their happy appearance. However, tests indicate only half will inherit our wings, but all of them will inherit the other desirable traits our species possesses. Like the Merfolk and the Leviathans. Only, unlike Mer-Levi, the dominant genes are humanoid, not aquatic mammal, so our offspring will look like us.”
Abaddon imagined what it would be like to hold one … no two … of the offspring he could beget upon such a creature as Lucifer talked. He could almost feel them in his arms. His children. His son playing at his feet as he taught him how to use a wooden sword. The child had his mother's dark hair and his wings. The other looked just like him, only she didn't have his wings. A daughter. Only she'd inherit his grey eyes. And his temper! Oh … what a hellion she would be. What a magnificent child!
Abaddon scratched his chin, deep in thought.
“The Mer and Levi love each other and their children, no matter which parent they look like," Abaddon said. "It wouldn't displease me to bear offspring who look like this human. After all … our own Emperor appears to us in this form." He snorted. "It's preferable to extinction.”
“She is at peak fertility for the next two days," Lucifer said. "Why not take her back to your ship and give her a test drive? If your medical technicians don't confirm she is pregnant within three days, you can return her. Where else can you get a money-back guarantee like that?”
As Lucifer spoke, Abaddon found himself fantasizing about what it would be like to make love to a creature of legend. It had been a long, dry spell. What would it be like to be touched by such a creature?
Abaddon held out his hand. The woman hesitated, as though unsure what to do. Lucifer bent towards her and whispered something
in her ear. She made eye contact, and then reached up to take his hand. Raising her knuckles to his lips, Abaddon asked if she would like to attempt a mating, the new ‘normal’ custom amongst Angelics ever since Hashem had announced his ‘be fruitful and multiply’ policies to ensure maximum genetic diversity.
“What will this gift cost me?” Abaddon asked. Neither Shay’tan, nor Lucifer, ever gave gifts without strings.
“The Emperor has enacted some policies which undermine the stability of the Alliance,” Lucifer's mouth formed into a dissatisfied moue. “All I ask is support in Parliament when I ask them to override the Emperor’s seed world restrictions and open the human homeworld to trade.”
Abaddon considered the matter and nodded agreement. What Lucifer proposed was not unreasonable. Parliament did have the authority to override the Emperor by a two-thirds vote of both houses. In fact, during the Emperor's little two-hundred year 'sabbatical' it was the only way they'd been able to get Alliance business done. If Lucifer’s demands became unreasonable, he would simply refuse to follow through. He'd been around the block too many times to get sucked into political intrigues. It was the reason, he suspected, he'd been passed over for promotion when the Emperor had created the position of Supreme Commander-General in favor of Jophiel. That little slight still smarted.
“Why is she so quiet,” Abaddon asked. “What did you do to her?”
“The humans grew up on a primitive planet,” Lucifer shrugged. “We found it helpful to give them a sedative until they adjust. Their level of technology has actually regressed, not moved forward, since my father abandoned them.”
“How primitive?” Abaddon asked.
“Shay’tan said my father knocked them back into a Stone Age as a ‘control’ group for the other twelve colonies,” Lucifer said. “Then he abandoned them when Shay’tan annexed that part of the galaxy. It's a good thing he did! Otherwise they would have gone extinct like the other colonies he tinkered with!”
Abaddon sucked in his breath. It was a good thing age had mellowed him or he would have exploded in a fit of rage. He'd been ordered to enforce a ‘hands-off’ policy on more than one of Hashem’s precious seed words, often to the detriment of the Alliance at large. Especially when he suspected Hashem’s motivation for declaring a world off limits had more to do with tweaking Shay’tan’s nose than the evolutionary frailty of an emerging pre-sentient species.
“Is she sentient?" Abaddon swallowed his anger. “Will she bear me sentient offspring?”
“Yes,” Lucifer said. “But there's a good reason my father tinkered with our DNA. The root stock is not as … how shall I put this … as intellectually gifted … as our Angelic females. She will make a loving, loyal mate who will bear you many fine offspring who are every bit as intelligent as you are. My father always ensures sentience is a dominant gene no matter which species he tinkers with. But you'll need to find somebody else to talk to if you want to discuss troop movements.”
“I'm a man of action,” Abaddon snorted, “not some pansy intellectual in an ivory tower.”
“And that is why you're in charge of the Angelic Air Force,” Lucifer said. “While intellectuals such as my father retreat into their own little worlds and espouse high ideals that don't work when faced with real problems.”
Abaddon raised one eyebrow at Lucifer to let him know the skillful ego-stroking would get him nowhere. The temptation of a potentially fertile human standing in front of him, on the other hand, was a different story.
“What happens if the mating is successful?” Abaddon asked. “Will she put our offspring into one of the Emperor’s training academies and deny me the right to see my own child?”
“Ahhhhh….” Lucifer said. “The heart of the issue. It's not right, female Angelics using their wombs so casually to fill the ranks of the Emperor’s armies. Our species used to take one mate for life."
“I'm old enough to remember when the Emperor’s breeding program was new,” Abaddon said wistfully. “What seemed like a male fantasy come true turned out to be my worst nightmare. What I wouldn't give to turn back the clock to a time when our species was allowed to love.”
Old dreams, long buried and forgotten, rose to the surface as Abaddon stared at the beautiful, dark-haired female with the mahogany brown eyes. He'd loved a woman once, but before she'd come into her heat-cycle she'd been killed in battle, her last words to whisper his name as she had died in his arms. He'd missed the opportunity to create a child with her so they would always have a symbol of their mutual adoration, even if the Emperor's law prohibited them from ever consummating their love a second time. This woman reminded him a bit of that long-lost love, gone so many centuries that her memory had faded, all except the shape of her eyes as the light had gone out of them and left him on the battlefield, grieving.
Lucifer was a skillful enough politician to leave Abaddon to his thoughts as he calculated the consequences of his actions should he choose, or not choose, to agree to Lucifer's proposal. Abaddon, on the other hand, was experienced enough dealing with Lucifer to know exactly how he was being 'handled.' It was an old dance they performed, the old general and the puppet-prince. This little coup d'état was about more than simply begetting offspring. Hashem had upset 200 years of Lucifer's plans when he'd suddenly returned and Lucifer wanted a little of that control back. Could Abaddon blame him?
"What are the terms of your agreement?" Abaddon asked.
“You must keep the existence of your bride a secret,” Lucifer said. “Just until I've match-made enough humans to infertile hybrids such as yourself to reach a critical mass.”
“What kind of critical mass?” Abaddon asked. “Just how much support do you need to get this override through Parliament?"
With the exception of Lucifer, who in theory spoke on behalf of the Eternal Emperor and not his own species, no hybrid was permitted a vote. Retired military personnel were, however, permitted to serve in other civilian capacities and were avidly sought out by the homeworlds they had often spent their entire lives defending. If Lucifer could pull enough strings to get his free trade deal rammed through Parliament, they would all benefit.
“Matters of the heart are … delicate,” Lucifer skillfully directed the conversation. “The females must be willing. Humans accept Angelics because we look like them, but the other hybrids terrify them. It would be unfair to help ourselves and not our brothers-in-arms, don't you agree?”
“Yes,” Abaddon said. “She-who-is loves all of her children.”
“I need time to help them acclimate to Leonids and the Centauri,” Lucifer said. “You must keep your bride a secret until I have found a solution for our brothers.”
Abaddon had done some heavy fighting alongside the other hybrids as well as the newer sentient races in his years as an Alliance soldier. If there was one thing he'd learned under fire, it was that it was not the shape of the species which mattered, but the valor which lay within their hearts. He was not about to grab a prize for himself and deny it to the others. They would all succeed … or fail … together.
“Of course,” Abaddon said.
“I've taken the liberty of summoning a priest of She-who-is,” Lucifer said. “Human custom is to be married before engaging in relations likely to produce offspring. Like our species did before the Emperor declared otherwise. Will you honor your mate by marrying her before impregnating her?”
“She will agree?” Abaddon asked.
“Ask her yourself,” Lucifer said. “She comes to you wearing her wedding dress.”
Abaddon could tell the woman had been drugged, but as she made eye contact, butterflies fluttered in his stomach. A creature of legend who wanted to marry … him? Old blood and guts? He was painfully aware of the battle-scar which ran from temple to chin, the one which had split his eyebrow in half and nearly cost him his eye. Ugly. No Angelic female would accept a male with such a hideous scar, much less one who was also blacklisted for being infertile. It didn't matter whether or not this female cou
ld produce offspring with him or not. At his age, his dreams had been reduced to not spending the rest of his life alone.
His heart pounded in his throat as he asked the question his god had forbidden him to ever ask.
“My beautiful dear, do you wish to become my wife?”
He kissed her hand. The fog cleared as she looked into his eyes, as though he was staring into the eyes of that long-lost love, but instead of watching the light go out of them, he watched the light pour back in. He could tell she was a proud woman by how regally she carried herself, as though she was used to giving orders. She murmured something in a language he couldn't understand. Small fingers closed trustingly around his larger ones. Abaddon the Destroyer, fiercest Air Force general the Alliance had ever seen, thought he might faint.
“It's official!” Lucifer announced, clapping his hands. “She shall be your mate for life.”
Abaddon’s head hummed as the priest read the nuptials. His wife! He had a wife! He couldn't wait until Lucifer got his trade deal up and running so he could show her off.
“Human females are used to being kept in harems." Lucifer handed the female a Sata’anic burqa, a garment which covered her from head to toe. A tiny screen permitted her to see as she walked. “She will be most comfortable keeping herself covered except when she is in the safety of your private quarters. It will solve the problem of keeping her identity secret with your crew."
“They'll think I have a non-hybrid mistress,” Abaddon laughed, nearly drunk with joy. “They'll speculate I hide an insectoid beneath the veil.”
“Let the crew imagine what they wish,” Lucifer said. “You have just won the hand of a creature of legend. The truth is more preposterous than their wildest dream!”
Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 41