Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (23 page)

Raphael

The
Light Emerging
hummed
reassuringly beneath Raphael's feet as they continued their mission of
searching for his missing friend.  Major Glicki's communications console
beeped, signaling an incoming subspace message.  With practiced efficiency his
second-in-command tapped the console to acknowledge the signal.

“Colonel Israfa,”
Major Glicki said, “Supreme Commander-General Jophiel has sent an encoded
message, eyes only.  She wishes you to make contact within 10 minutes.”

“Thank you, Major
Glicki,” Raphael said, just as formally.  “Please assume the bridge while I go
down to my quarters.”

Their tone was formal
whenever they communicated with each other in front of the other airmen,
officer and subordinate, but the subtle tilt of her green heart-shaped head was
anything
but
emotionless.  Raphael could almost hear her calculating how
much time until she got off-shift and how much liquor it would take to
lubricate him enough to shake off whatever bad news Jophiel was about to
deliver to him.

He checked his
appearance as soon as he got back into his personal quarters and hid Jophiel's
photograph in his desk drawer before queuing up the video monitor.  Mikhail was
her
friend as well.  She had overlooked the additional week which had
passed without giving them new orders, but this would be the call.  Father of
her latest offspring or not, General Jophiel had a fleet to run and he was more
valuable elsewhere.

Either that … or it
was time.

“General,” Raphael
greeted the videoconference monitor at the appointed contact time.  “I'm at
your service.”

“Colonel Israfa,”
Jophiel said, her face a stern mask.  “I assume you know why I'm calling?”

“I'm being recalled.” 
Raphael attempted to state the expectation passively and failed.  Jophiel was
commanding him to abandon his closest friend for dead.

“Not quite,” Jophiel
grimaced and breathed rapidly before regaining her composure.  “I have another
mission for you in that sector.”

“General … are you
alright?”

“It is time,” Jophiel
said without emotion.  “By this time tomorrow, your son will be here.”

His son.  Here.  With 
her.  And then the child would be sent away. 
His
child would be sent
away.  To the youth training academy to be raised by strangers.  The only link
he would ever have to her.  The only
child
he might ever have!  Raphael
lost all semblance of emotional control and spoke what was in his heart.

“Let me be with you,”
Raphael's golden wings trembled with emotion.  “Please!  I can take a needle
and be there in an hour.  Let me be at your side to give you this small
comfort…”

“This is my twelfth
child,” Jophiel snapped, “I'm quite capable of taking care of myself.”

“Jophie, don't be like
that," Raphael said.  "I'm only suggesting you
deserve
to have
someone at your side.  You don't have to do this alone.”

“I am
never
alone,”
Jophiel said coldly.  “The Eternal Emperor
himself
sees to it that I,
and my offspring, are well taken care of.”

“He’s
my
offspring too!”  Anger rose in his voice as, for the first time in his life, he
contradicted a superior officer.  “He deserves to know his father!”

“He deserves to know
what the Emperor
decides
he deserves to know!”  Jophiel grimaced with
pain as she endured another contraction.  “That’s an order.”

Raphael stared at the
beautiful, cold woman who was, even now, giving birth to his child while
simultaneously juggling command of the Alliance fleet.  It was rumored she'd
given birth to her fifth child right on the battlefield.  Dropped into a trench
when the contractions became too great to fly, given birth, and shot a Sata’an
soldier in the face just as the child had slid from her womb.  She'd fought her
way out with her newborn in hand, killing two dozen Sata’an soldiers, and then
immediately handed the child over to the training academy to be raised.  She'd
been rewarded by the Emperor himself with a medal, and a promotion, for her
valor. 

Raphael wished now
he'd given more weight to those reports and not been so enthralled by her
beauty and the honor of being chosen by a five-star general to mate.  Their son
would be a magnificent soldier who would someday rise to a position of power. 
That much he knew about all of Jophiel’s offspring.  But he felt cheated.  Damn
her!  Damn her for being so heartless and cold!

“Raphael,” Jophiel
used his given name.  The stern mask of a general disappeared, replaced by the
tenderness he'd glimpsed during their courtship.  “I didn't call to fight.  I
can't change the laws of our people.  But I
can
do this for you."

Raphael paused the
hand which had been about to commit the imprudent act of cutting off the
transmission with the Alliance's highest ranking general before he did
something even
worse. 
Such as tell her what a heartless bitch he
thought she was.  Or break down and beg her to reconsider.  The latter,
probably.

"We have fresh
reports of mercenaries running cargo out there on the spiral arm where your
friend disappeared," Jophiel said.  "Our intelligence indicates you
may be right about a larger foray into that sector by the Sata’an Empire.  I'm
ordering you to go investigate."  She gave him a wistful smile.  "If
you should happen to stumble across Mikhail while doing so … that would be fortuitous.”

She offered him yet
another consolation prize…

“You will send me
images of our child before you send him away?” Raphael pleaded.  “He's my son,
too…”  His voice was barely a whisper as a single tear rolled down his cheek. 
Hazel-blue eyes turned green with emotion as he realized this was the end of
his relationship with her.  With their son born and abandoned to the youth
training academy to be raised, Jophiel had no further use for him.

“Once you've found
your friend,” Jophiel grimaced as the next contraction hit, “I'll give you
leave to go visit him."  Her expression was pregnant with regret as she
reached towards the screen to end the transmission and hesitated.  "I
didn't realize when we mated that such things mattered to you.  You're the first
one who has ever asked.”

He touched the screen,
one finger tracing the downward turn of her lips as they bid each other
goodbye.  Her lip trembled as though she could
feel
the caress he wished
to give her from halfway across the galaxy.

“It matters,” Raphael
whispered, his heart heavy with regret. 

As soon as the screen
went dark, he fished the photograph of him escorting her
to a state
dinner at the Emperor's palace and placed it back upon his desk.  He'd guided
her out of her shuttle on his arm as though she was a movie star instead of
simply allowing her to march in on her own, the usual custom.  He'd never
understood why she'd brought him out so publicly before selecting him to sire
this child, but an ambitious reporter had captured her expression as she'd
offered him her hand.  She wore a smile like the heroine on the cover of a
Mantoid romance novel might give upon meeting her hero for the first time. 

Silly romantic
notions!

At least she'd
manufactured an excuse to allow him to continue searching for Mikhail and would
give him access to their son.  He wistfully traced her smile.  Perhaps she
didn't have a heart of stone after all?

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

February – 3,390 BC

Earth:  Crash site

Ninsianna

The sound of scuffles
coming from the front of the sky canoe woke Ninsianna with a start.  A silent
hand prevented her from igniting the magic lantern that was built into the
ceiling of her bunk and illuminating the room. 

“Shhh…” 

Even in the dark, she would
know the reassuring timbre of his voice anywhere.  Her eyes adjusted to the dim
green light of a device he called 'clock.'  She watched him grab his firestick
and shove it into a holster.  He then reached into a compartment in the ceiling
and pulled out a long, thin object that captured the dim green light. 
Ninsianna had never seen such a weapon, but it reminded her of the head of a
spear, only longer. 
Much
longer.  A word jumped into her mind. 
Sword.
 
Was this the weapon her father had sung about in the ancient song?  Motioning
for her to remain still, Mikhail flared his wings and moved like a raptor
towards the front of the sky canoe.

She held her breath,
her heart pounding in her throat.  A wild animal?  She heard hushed voices.  A
thud.  Not an animal.  Human. 
Many
humans.  Mikhail was powerful, but
he was badly wounded … and outnumbered.

Ninsianna was no
warrior, but conflict was a way of life in a land with unpredictable rainfall. 
Famine provoked rival tribes to raid villages with more reliable resources. 
With Assur's placement near the Hiddekel River, they were a frequent target. 
As soon as a child could walk, male or female, they were taught to defend
themselves.  Reaching under her bunk, she pulled out her satchel and fished out
her obsidian blade.

Men shouted as Mikhail
made his presence known.  All hell broke loose in the front of the sky canoe. 
Belting her shawl around her waist so she wouldn't meet their attackers naked,
she ran to the bridge just in time to see Mikhail pick up two men and smash
their heads together as though they were rag dolls.  Another was thrown out the
entrance from whence they'd come, knocking down his peers. 

The first two pulled
their spears.  One threw.  Mikhail caught it mid-air and used it to thwap his
assailant off the side of the head.  Spinning like a dust devil, he kicked the
second assailant in the chest, simultaneously punching the first thief in the
face.  Grabbing both men by the scruff of the neck, he effortlessly tossed them
out the crack in the hull and pushed through to the outside.  The pre-dawn
light cast a grey shadow against one edge of the horizon, rendering their
attackers little more than dark shadows against an even darker landscape.

“Watch out!” Ninsianna
cried out.  She rushed after him.

Several men waited for
him there with a net.  They tossed it over his head and tried to tackle him to
the ground.  Ninsianna shrieked.  Mikhail swung his sword and leaped into the
air, flapping his wings to flip upside down.  Ninsianna breathed relief.  With
a 20-cubit wingspan, they needed a
much
bigger net. 

Her gratitude was
short-lived as nearly two dozen men rushed at him with spears.  With a flash of
silver, Mikhail knocked several spears aside with his sword before one of them
sank into his thigh.  Ninsianna felt his grunt of pain as though the spear
pierced her own flesh.

“Mikhail!” she cried. 
He was
already
badly wounded.  With a spear in his leg, they might kill
him.  Why did he not just use his firestick?

Goosebumps rose on
Ninsianna's flesh as she watched a deadly calm descend upon her patient. 
Power.  Never before had she sensed this much power.  Flaring his wings for
balance, he spread his legs and moved his arms to his sides so that he could
move in any direction.  He spoke to his attackers in a strange language.  Not
his language.  Not hers.  But a language so deep and ancient the very air
vibrated with his words. 

Horror screamed
through her veins as he turned to survey the positions of his attackers and
made eye contact with her.  His eyes were black and empty, as though they were
a bottomless black pit from whence nothing could return.  The pre-dawn light
played tricks upon her eyes, making her imagine he bore the leathery wings of a
bat.  She blinked.  No.  This was still Mikhail.  It was his
intent
which
had changed.  Up until this point, he'd been trying
not
to kill any of
their attackers.   That wouldn't be the case any longer.

The attackers paused
to coordinate their attack, the brightening pre-dawn light finally exposing
their positions.  Without so much as a grimace, Mikhail tore the spear from his
thigh and held it in his left hand, ignoring the fact his wrist still had a
splint on it.  Cold fire lit up his expression as his fist clenched the sword
in his right hand.  Ninsianna shuddered.