Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (47 page)

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.06 AE

Earth:  Sata’an Forward Operating Base

Lieutenant Kasib

Lt.
Kasib

Lieutenant Kasib
rubbed the satisfied warmth in his belly, the taste of  porridge made from
local grains and a dried fruit called 'dates' still upon his sensitive forked
tongue as he made his way back from the mess hall.  Amorite traders, a group
who had allied themselves with the Sata'anic nation builders, led a sizeable
herd of human females across the central plaza, future brides for whichever
worthy male the powers-that-be decided to gift them to.  Unlike Sata'anic
females, who viewed their induction into the Female Finishing School with eager
anticipation, these females trudged despondently and sobbed.  As he watched, an
Amorite shoved one onto the ground and kicked her.

“Hey!” Kasib shouted
in broken Kemet.  “Don't hurt her!”

Kemet was the language
of trade on this planet.  As soon as they'd started setting up a Forward
Operating Base, General Hudhafah had ordered them to learn it.  Annexing a
planet meant the locals were expected to cast off their primitive tongues and
speak the civilized language of the Empire, but there was always a period of
transition.

“Clumsy piece of goat
shit!” the Amorite snarled, nervous he'd drawn unwanted attention.  “She's been
deliberately pretending to trip and fall the entire way here!  Trying to
engineer her escape, no doubt!”

“I'm sorry,” the female
sobbed.  She lurched to her feet and stumbled back into line, bruises visible
on her cheek from previous beatings.  The other women closed rank, protecting
her even though Kasib’s presence terrified them.  General Hudhafah had ordered
them to stay back and not overwhelm the females until they became acclimated to
seeing other species, but the Amorite's treatment was unacceptable.

“I'll take over.” 
Kasib tasted the air with his forked tongue and immediately regretted it.  The
stench of unwashed bodies made him want to retch.  He gave the Amorite a look
of disgust.  “Go report to Lieutenant Abdul-Ghani to get paid.”

The Amorite stalked
off to the payment office without as much as a ‘thank you.’  The women huddled
together in fear, but they appeared to understand that Kasib objected to the
slavers rough treatment of them.

“You won't be
harmed.”  Kasib had to focus to not slip an inadvertent ‘hiss’ into his
enunciation.  “Over there.  That tent with the yellow flag.  That will be your
home until we prepare you to meet your new husbands.”

The females went
meekly, without protest.  Many had torn clothing or visible cuts and bruises. 
As they moved towards the tent, the female who had inspired the entire incident
tripped and fell to the ground a second time.

“I'm sorry!” she
cried.  The other women glanced fearfully at Kasib and the other Sata’an
guards.

“I'll do it!”  Kasib
reached down to help her up.  Her skin felt warm, like his, not cold blooded
like his Marid comrades-in-arms.  It felt …  soft.

Although she was not
Sata’an, this was the closest he'd ever been to an unrelated female who was not
a sister, half-sister, or one of his sister's sister-wives.  Shay’tan kept
strict control over females and how much access unrelated males got to them. 
It was disrespectful to look at an unrelated female, but there were no fathers,
brothers, or husbands to bring the women to the crude female finishing school
Hudhafah had set up to train them.  A father, brother, or half-brother would
have cracked the Amorite's skulls.

“Thank you,” she
said.  “I'm so clumsy.  It won't happen again.”

As she spoke, even
though he averted his eyes downward as was proper to address an unrelated
female, Kasib noticed she didn't make eye contact.  That was … unusual.  Humans
didn't have the same prohibition against inter-gender eye contact that
civilized races did … yet.

“That’s okay.”  Kasib
watched her without being obvious, a skill all Sata’an males learned to
overcome the prohibition against looking at a female's face when looking was
the only way to tell if you'd offended her.  She focused not towards his eyes,
but the sound of his voice.  While the other females stared, owl-eyed at his
Sata’anic features, flinching every time he twitched his tail, this one didn't
appear to care.

“We'll help her.”  Two
females came forward and guided her back into their huddle.  The young woman
stumbled again.  It clicked.

“You're blind!” He
couldn't believe it!   A blind female without war injuries?  Such a thing was
unheard of in the Sata'an Empire!  Most blindness was cured via surgery or
prosthesis.  Shay’tan was cheap, but the old dragon realized skimping on health
care or education was more expensive in the long run.

One of the females
stepped in front of him to shield her from his view and said in broken Kemet,
“leave her alone!” 

Despite the fear in
the bold one’s eyes, she was as regal as a queen.  Like a first-wife chosen to
be the anchor of a high-ranking male who had grown accustomed to ruling her
children, sister-wives, and
their
children with a firm hand.  In fact,
all three females bore a strong resemblance to one another, although to Kasib,
all humans looked alike.  Sisters?  Or cousins?  They were not supposed to take
more than two sample females from each area until full annexation had been
achieved.  He would need to report this to General Hudhafah.

“I'll not hurt her,”
Kasib said.  “The rest of you … into the tent with the yellow flag.  You … come
with me.  I want our physician to look at you.  Your sisters may come as an
escort.”

Five guards herded the
larger group into the yellow-flagged tent.  Kasib ordered the two females he'd
asked to stay to lead the blind one over to the medical tent.  Calling for
Doctor Peyman, the base physician, he apprised him of the situation.

“This one is blind,”
Kasib hissed in his own language.  “Hudhafah is adamant that the Amorites only
gather healthy, unattached young females of marriageable age.  And not all from
the same village or family.  These three females are related.”

“Up here, young lady,”
Doctor Peyman said in Kemet, patting the top of the examination table.  “What
is your name?”

“Taram,” the young
woman said.  “Please don't hurt my family!  It's not their fault.”

“Your sisters may stay
to protect your modesty,” Doctor Peyman said.  “But Lieutenant Kasib will need
to step outside.”

Kasib did as ordered. 
After almost an hour, Doctor Peyman came out.

“They are Khurrites,”
Doctor Peyman said.  “One is a sister, the other is her cousin.  Acceptable
according to the parameters Ba'al Zebub has set out.  The blind one, however,
is not acceptable.  I have contacted the payment office and ordered them
not
to render payment for this one.  The Amorites know better.  They told her that
if we found out she was blind before she got shipped off, they would kill her.”

“How would we
not
notice she is blind?” Kasib asked.

“She's not
completely
blind,” Peyman said.  “She can see shadows and colors.  She claims she can
perform the tasks expected of a wife.”

“Isn’t there anything
you can do for her?” Kasib asked.  “If she can see shadows, her illness should
be curable.”

“If we were in the
Hades cluster,” Peyman said, “or if I had more time to study their physiology
so I could engineer a cure, maybe.  But under these conditions?  Until we bring
a civilizing hand to this planet, she will have to live with her disability.”

“I overheard the
General say that the Alliance hybrids are desperate for any female they can
reproduce with,” Kasib said.  “Rumor has it
that's
where the first few
groups are headed.  I believe the hybrids would accept her, flawed or not.”

“Our orders are
clear,” Peyman said, his expression serious.  “She needs to be returned to her
family.”

“How will we do that
if the Amorites threatened to kill her?” Kasib asked.  “Look at the bruises!”

Doctor Peyman tasted
the air, scratching his head behind his ear-hole.  “I didn't have a good
feeling about the last two I rejected.  I suspect the Amorites abandoned them
in the wilderness to die.  I'll list her as having expired in transit and leave
it up to
you
to come up with a solution.”

“What am I going to do
with an unattached female?” Kasib asked.  “It's disrespectful for her to even
be in my presence!  No self-respecting male will accept a female with loose
morals!”

“Your options are
limited,” Peyman said.  “Either hand her back to the Amorites and hope they do
the honorable thing, or deal with it on your own.  Which will it be?  Rejected
for medical reasons?  Or officially dead so there is no trace of her in the
system?”

“Officially dead…”
Kasib said.  “I'll think of something.  I didn't get to be Hudhafah’s personal
assistant by
not
being able to figure out how to get things where they
need to go.”

Peyman nodded.  He
went back into the medical tent to break the news to his patient.  Kasib
scratched his ear holes in wonder.  How in Hades had he just gotten himself
saddled with transporting a blind human female back hundreds of miles to an
unknown home?

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.06 AE

Zulu Sector:  Command Carrier ‘
Light Emerging
’

Colonel Raphael Israfa

Raphael

Raphael's golden
feathers rustled as he scrutinized the intelligence report just in from one of
the three battle cruisers under his command.  His lips moved as he read, a
trick he'd learned to force himself to
hear
what he was reading as his
ear often picked up the absurdity of something which his eyes would miss, as
though he were listening to himself gossip about the latest newscast.

“How recent are these
sightings, Ensign Zzz'ler’?” Raphael asked.

“The oldest is two
days old.”  The ensign's voice translator helped her vocalize those portions of
the Angelic language which were beyond her species physical capability to
articulate.

"And you're
certain every one of these ships was a non-military trading vessel?" Raphael
asked.

"They even
checked the cargo, Sir," Zzz'ler said.  "Major Hck'lr made them open
up the boxes and rifled through a few of the hidden compartments they thought
we didn't know about.  The goods were all Sata'anic in origin, but civilian."

That, in and of
itself, was not unusual.  Ever since the advent of free trade agreements,
most
goods were manufactured in the Sata'an Empire.

"Any
weapons?"

"No, Sir,"
Zzz'ler said.  "Lots of glowsticks, sleeping bags, and cots."

"The kind of
goods which could be used to set up a large Sata'anic base," Raphael
scrolled through the lists marked 'camping gear.'

"They were all
boxed and priced for commercial sale," Zzz'ler said.   "Major Hck'lr
felt he had no choice but to let them go."