Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (87 page)

“Good
morning,” she answered, stretching.  It was rest-day.  They didn't have to tend
the fields, teach any classes, or do anything else except spend time with each
other and her parents.  She reached up to touch his cheek and looked into his
beautiful blue eyes.  “What's on your mind?”

“I have to go
back to my ship today,” he said.  “I remembered a little bit more about why I
was sent here.”

“What?” 
Ninsianna felt a feeling of dread.  Something significant had happened
yesterday during the hunt.  She could
see
the way the light streamed
from his body and flowed someplace far away, no longer centered on her or her
village.

“The Sata’an
Empire is building bases in this sector," Mikhail said.  As he spoke, he
looked not at
her,
but inward, trying to pry loose the memories that
wanted to remain hidden.  "I was sent to investigate what was so important
about such a remote spiral arm.  I was shot down before I had a chance to send
my report.”

“Why haven’t
they just come and gotten you, then?” Ninsianna asked.  She couldn't understand
much about what he spoke of, empires and sectors, but she could see the concern
in his eyes.

“I was in
stealth mode when I was hit,” he said.  “Black ops.  Like a wolf stalking a
prey animal through the grass.  They have no idea where to look for me.  But
the fact they shot me down means there
must
be a Sata’an base somewhere
on this planet.”

What was a
black ... op?  Her gift of tongues translated the foreign word, but it still
meant nothing to her.

“Why?"
she asked.  "What would these people's interest be here?”

“I can’t
remember!” Mikhail's voice rose with frustration.  “I can't remember enough to
piece it all together! All I remember is that it's critically important that I
report the existance of this base back to Supreme Commander-General Jophiel.”

“Who is
General Jophiel?” Ninsianna asked.  Until now, Mikhail had only spoken of his
Cherubim Master and friend Raphael.  Images from her vision ... the one that
showed he wouldn't be here to protect her when the Evil One came ... intruded
into her mind.  Was he trying to tell her that he had to leave?  Ninsianna
swallowed, trying to hide her fear.

“She is the
highest ranking military authority we have and equal to the civilian Prime
Minister,” Mikhail said.  “She is second in power only to the Emperor himself.”

“She?”
Ninsianna tilted her head in disbelief.  “Your highest ranking military
authority is a
woman
?”

“Of course,”
Mikhail said.  “Many of our generals are female.  Why do you think I keep
insisting that the Chief include women in the training?”

"Oh,"
Ninsianna said.  What else
could
she say, other than a feeling of
elation at the fact that a woman could be a general.  “Why is my world so
important?"

“Why?  I still
can’t remember why!" Mikhail stared out the window, his facial features
showing rare frustration.  "Every single moment of every day, it eats at
me, this mission I know I was supposed to complete!  I can even remember how
urgent I felt it was to complete my mission at the time!"  He lifted her
chin so he could stare directly into her eyes.  "I was supposed to follow
that enemy ship and report where it went.  Now I remember
who
I was
supposed to report that information back to."

“Then we must
go back to your ship and send that message so your people know where you
are," Ninsianna said.  Her own words gave her a mixed thrill of fear and
elation.  Elation ... his people would come for him and then he would take her
to see the stars!  Fear because ... what if his people made him leave her
behind?

“First I need
to get the communication system running," he said.  "All I have is
battery power.  Somehow, I must compress a databurst into a beam and hope I’ve
got it aimed in the right direction so I can reach Raphael’s ship with what
little power I have left.  If his ship is still even in this sector.  It
has
been seven months...”

Ninsianna
propped herself up onto her elbow and stared into her husband's eyes. 

“Mikhail ... I
don't understand a word you just said.”

“The gift ...
is it fading?” Mikhail asked.  His brow furrowed in concern.  He liked that he
could converse with her in his native tongue ... or reel him back to the planet
in the Cherubim language whenever he was forced to use his ‘gift.’

“The goddess'
gift works just fine,” Ninsianna laughed.  “I just don't understand how your
technology works.  You haven't taught me yet.”

“Oh ...” 
Comprehension dawned about the nature of the problem.  His lips curved up in a
smile, his blue eyes flashing with rare excitement.  “Then you must come with
me and I'll bring you up to speed on the last 10,000 years worth of
technological advances.”

“I think I'll
enjoy
some more time alone with you at your ship,” Ninsianna lowered her voice to a
sultry whisper.  She suggestively ran her hand down his abdomen.  “We never get
to spend enough time together anymore.”

The troubled
expression he'd worn ever since he'd come back from the hunt yesterday faded. 
In her hands, he was putty, and she knew he relished each and every second of
it!  With a growl of pleasure, Mikhail rolled on top of her for a playful
morning romp.

“And I wonder
why I can never get any work done while you're around,” he said.

It was
Ninsianna’s squeals of laughter and the sound of wings thumping against the
wall that woke Ninsianna’s parents up on this fine rest-day.

~ * ~ * ~
* ~ * ~

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.09 AE

Haven-3

Prime Minister Lucifer

Lucifer

“Sire,” Zepar
shook Lucifer awake. 
“Sire!  Wake up. 
You'll be late for your meeting.

A sensation akin to a
man with a sonic jackhammer pounded into Lucifer's skull and made it feel as
though someone was sucking his brain out of his head and spitting it back out
afterwards into his lurching stomach.  Not again!  Lucifer groaned in agony.

“Couldn't you call in
sick for me or something?” Lucifer whimpered.  It hurt so badly that he didn't
dare open his eyes.  “I need to go to a real doctor so I can get my head
examined.”

“No!” Zepar said quickly. 
“You can’t, Sire.  If you tell an Alliance physician you've been experiencing
blackouts, they'll have you removed from office so fast your head will be
spinning.”

“I no longer care.” 
Bile rose in Lucifer's throat, burning the entire way up.  “Zepar!  Quick!  I
need a bucket!”

Lucifer spent the next
20 minutes heaving curdled chunks of goddess-only-knows what kind of meal into
an ice bucket.  He was too shaky to even make it to his bathroom to worship the
porcelain god.  At some point the vomit-induced fog cleared enough for him to
recognize he was back at his penthouse on Haven-3, not his ship.  Finally, he
began to regain his equilibrium.

“Tell me about my
schedule for the day,” Lucifer eyed Zepar with weary determination.

“You're scheduled to
meet with the Ministry of Education at eleven o’clock,” Zepar said.  “You have
a prescheduled mating appointment at twelve-thirty, and then we need to hop a
three o’clock transport to Haven-1 to make the seven o’clock banquet with the
Eternal Emperor.”

“When did we get back
to Haven?” Lucifer asked.  The last thing he remembered was finishing up a
budget meeting in Parliament and hopping a transport back out to the
borderlands to rejoin his diplomatic carrier.  The ship should remain elusive
in case Jophiel decided to bust his chops by having one of her goons run a
‘safety inspection’ of his ship.

“We hopped a needle
back last night,” Zepar said.  “You had quite a bit to drink.  Perhaps that's
why you're feeling under the weather this morning?”

“Yes, of course,” Lucifer
said.  That old feeling of dread surfaced as Lucifer realized he had no
recollection of arriving.  “Zepar, what day is it today?”

“Thursday, Sire,”
Zepar said.

“I mean, the date?”
Lucifer asked.  “We've been moving around the galaxy so much lately that I'm
planet-lagged.  What’s the date here on Haven-3?”

“September 17
^th
,
Sire,” Zepar said.  “The Eternal Emperor’s birthday.  He asked you return to
celebrate his 1,178,432
^nd
birthday party tonight.”

What? 

July … August …
September … oh … fuck…

“Can you leave me
alone a few minutes to get dressed?”  Lucifer's voice betrayed how shaky he
felt.  “Oh … and get me the brief for today’s meeting with the Ministry of
Education.  I can’t remember jack-shit about why in Hades I'm even meeting him
in the first place.” 

“Whoever does?” Zepar
flipped one hand back in a dismissive gesture.  “The brief will be in your
hands within 20 minutes.”  Zepar left him alone to get cleaned up and ready for
the day.

Three months.  How in
Hades had he just lost three months of his life?  And worse … what had he been
up to all that time?  Holding his head to prevent it from splitting in two,
Lucifer frantically spooled up his electronic scheduling device, clicking
through his appointments for the past three months to try to piece together
what in Hades he'd been up to.

He'd done the budget
meeting he recalled coming back for and hopped a transport back to his ship. 
He noted receipt of several more shipments of human females.  He'd met with
various high-placed members of the Alliance who were experiencing fertility
problems and made cryptic notes in his schedule with some sort of code,
presumably tracking numbers to keep track of the females since they weren't
sentient enough to even have names.  Although he had no recollection of it,
everything on his schedule fit his plan to stave off extinction by opening the
human homeworld to trade.  He stopped, however, at the last appointment in his
schedule.  His hand trembled as he scrolled back, then forward again, certain
his hangover must be causing him to read what was written in his social
calendar wrong.

“Kunopegos is ten
times the size of a human,” Lucifer said, horrified.  He immediately reached
for his comms pin.  He wouldn't tell Zepar just how long of a blackout he was
waking up from, just the last week.  “Zepar … I need you to come back in here
in half an hour.”

He got showered and
dressed, playing it as cool as possible.  His heart raced.  He should step down
from office!  He
knew
he should step down!  It wasn't right that the
Alliance's highest elected official lost
months
out of his life!  But if
he did, all of his efforts to override his father’s seed-world policies would
go out the window.  Hashem didn't know how to fix the hybrid fertility
problem.  It was up to
him
to save his species from extinction! 

Should he discuss this
with Zepar?  No.   Deep down he'd always known Zepar was only along for the
ride.  If Zepar knew how badly he was losing it, he would ditch him in a
heartbeat.  He had to somehow enlist his help without Zepar knowing just how
much help he really needed.  Lucifer composed his features to play it cool.

“Sire,” Zepar said as
he came back in.  “Are you ready to go?”

“I don't know how to
say this,” Lucifer said, “so I'll just come right out with it.  I think I may
have experienced another blackout.  The last thing I remember was we were
scheduled to meet General Kunopegos to discuss the human females, but then I
can't recall what happened afterwards.  I need you to fill me in on the details
of that meeting.”

“You've been pushing
yourself too hard,” Zepar placed a sympathetic hand upon his shoulder.  “Would
you like me to cancel your three o’clock mating appointment so you have time to
take a nap?  The only reason I scheduled it was to create a smokescreen.  It
will look odd if you suddenly lose all interest in females.  You
do
have
your reputation to maintain, Sire.”