Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (63 page)

“We told Flavia and Jolene - us girls that is - and they seemed to understand.  Your crafty step-sister told me later that she had known for a long time that you and I had the ‘hot’s’ for each other.  She looked mad, but just shook her head when she stared my way.”  Katie winked and shrugged suggestively.  “She must’ve seen something that summer afternoon when I had your hard dick dangling in front of my face.”

“All this time, she didn’t say anything to me,” I asserted, bewildered at this point.

“Why would she, especially if she only thought she saw something?  It’s a pretty big accusation, you know, telling everyone that we’re cousin-fuckers.”

My eyes went wide.  “Katie, you gonna have to calm down!”

Her mouth twisted wryly.  “Yeah, sure, Effy, I’m all about being calm.”

“And what about Johan, what did he say?  Who told him?”  My brother had to be totally grossed out by the thought of me being intimate with a blood relative.  I mean who wouldn’t be?

“Ramona and Flavia spoke to him, but he waved it off.  He said didn’t care what you did or who you slept with.  If we were all fine with it, then why should he interfere.  He didn’t see a reason to be upset, particularly with all the shit going on around here.”  Katie leaned in to kiss me once again, but spoke before our lips touched.  “I think he’s only concerned about Jolene, all the rest of us could fall down a cliff for all he cares…”  She trailed off to kiss me again.

“When did all this happen?” I asked after a moment’s consideration.

“When you were up here with Tirza,” she replied, heavy in my arms.

I shook in confusion.  “I thought you girls were talking about… other things…”

Katie’s chuckle gurgled in her throat.  “That wasn’t a very long convo, Effy.  Once the ground rules were set in place, the rest was simple.  It was over in a quarter of an hour.  We spent the additional time, explaining things.”  She kissed me again before I could comment.

“Get a room you two,” said Leda as she came from the bathroom, passing us on the left as she went with the others.

Katie grinned; our lips still mashed together, then broke away, calling after the dark haired girl.  “We just might!”

Tirza looked at us with a stricken cast to her face.

I tickled Katie to break her train of thought, not wanting her to say anything else in front of my ex-girlfriend.  Tirza seemed already at her wit’s end, no need to push it any farther than necessary.  My cousin squealed and squirmed beneath my fingertips as they dug into her sides.

“Stop it, Estefan!” she whined and twisted away, though she was laughing.

I waited for her to get her composure.

“Come on, Katie let’s get settled and wait for the others to finish what they need to do,” I urged, holding out my hand to her.

She took it immediately.  “Ok.”

We walked to my bed and joined my siblings and Johan’s girlfriend.

[Something calls him away.  More pressing issues in the present demand his attention.  For now, the past must wait.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Earth Summer – 2385)

Europa

Estefan spent most of the next day and a half writing.  After he and Leda had pulled the rest of the Synod into his small cabin and announced they were pregnant, he had buried himself in the past, most of it pouring out of him in a flood.  He was recalling details he had thought he’d long forgotten, each one as magnificent a revelation as the last.  Still, he hadn’t stopped.  The news of a new baby on the way had somehow inspired him to put as much to words as he possibly could.  It was as though he wanted to tell his newest child as much as possible about how he and his mother had met, how their relationship began. 

He had gone so far as delegate some of the daily decisions, necessary in keeping his massive syndicate running smoothly, to others.  They were, after all, competent; otherwise, he would’ve hired them in the first place.

Of course, his wives had been shocked at first at the news.  The last of them was finally giving birth.  Like Estefan, none of them had ever expected Leda would allow herself to
be in a motherly fashion.  It had never seemed to suit her, though she loved children and was a great surrogate mother to all of the other children of the Synod.  To the rest of them, she appeared willing to go only as far as that and was content to let all else fall where it may.  Being a mother hadn’t been an option, until now.

The conversation, as was the norm, had turned to names
, if it were a boy or a girl, and basic planning for the baby’s arrival.  Of course, Leda’s living arrangements upon Luna Prime would have to be changed.  It had long been their practice if any of Estefan’s wives was pregnant.  They’d have the rooms and chambers closest to his.  These apartments had a connecting door and were typically vacant, so the move wouldn’t be an intrusion on anyone else.

The last to live there had been Tirza, who had given birth to Patricia - named after Estefan’s late mother.  She had lived there until the little girl had turned two.  The day after they’d celebrated little Patty’s birthday, Tirza had moved back into her old quarters further down the hall with the child.  The “Pregnant Suite”, as they lovingly termed it, had been immediately prepared for next woman in need of it.

They had all known there would still be many more children to come, since none of Estefan’s wives would ever be menopausal.  They would continue to be fertile until they ran out of viable eggs.

Even when Estefan had been a child, doctors in that century had known female fetuses at 20-weeks could carry as many as six hundred thousand eggs
and about 400,000 at birth.  Your typical, healthy woman would continue to release one of her eggs every twenty-eight earth-days or thereabout.  This was true of all females of the Combined Human Race, but for Old-Timers the semblance stopped there.  They never stopped menstruating.  They never stopped using their clutch of eggs either; thus, instead of multitudes dying off with age, they were literally frozen in time like the Old-Timer women themselves.  To date, there was no medical facility anywhere in the Sixteen Worlds that could adequately predict the duration of an Old-Timer’s fertility.  This included the males as well.  So, those of the Aegis Synod had always known there would be more children.

They just hadn’t expected Leda to be the next.  Within minutes of their announcement, they were all in a frenzied state.

He had sat back and watched them slowly drift out of his quarters, in groups of twos and threes – absorbed in their schemes and plans - until they were all gone.  With a wry grin on his face and a shake of his head, he head activated his Neuro-Nanoswarm and begun to write.  His mind alive with a past he wanted his newest baby to know and understand.

“M’Lord Keeper?” chimed his ‘Swarm via the Comm-consul at the entrance to his room.

Wrapping up the last of his thoughts, Estefan replied: “Speak.”

“Lord, you ordered us to inform you when we begin our descent vector into the Europian atmosphere.  We have begun to do so,” explained the Null-ships’ Capitan.  Only he and the Synod had direct access to him.

“Very well, I’ll be on the Bridge shortly.”

“Very good,
Sir,” and the line went dead.

Anyone who had served him for a number of years knew he wasn’t one to bandy about on a comm-link.  Estefan abhorred talking without the person present.  Even as a teenager, his cell phone conversation
s tended to be short.

He waved away his ‘Swarm, activated his armoire
, pointing to the garments he would wear as the Null-ship penetrated the outermost reaches of the manufactured atmosphere of Europa.

Less than ten minutes later, dressed in his trademark, three-piece suit and expensive, twenty-first century loafers, his face and head cleanly shaven.  He walked from the connecting corridor onto the Bridge of the A.S.S. Stingray.  Before him spread the many stations, banks and arrays of the latest in Draxis Corp Null-tech and beyond that, through the
transparent Diatainium shielding was the immense vista of Jupiter’s sixth moon, Europa.

His wives were all clustered about
the Command Deck, milling, talking, their voices hushed as he approached them.  They were all dressed in the same white and black, skin-tight get up and heels Leda had worn when she had come into his quarters and told him she was pregnant.  Only Flavia’s was sanguine, the color of blood.  It was the hue she always wore when she felt combat was close at hand.  If she got bloody, it wouldn’t show all that much on her clothing.  She was expecting trouble.  That made Estefan frown.

“Ready?” asked Ramona coming from the throng, her expression reassuring and soft.

As ready as I’ll ever be, my love
, he said to her with his mind, which made her nod and reach out to stroke his cheek.

He made sure he made eye contact with each of
his wives before he turned toward his Command Chair. 
Time to get his shit over with!

It descended from the ceiling, slightly behind and to the left of Captains’ and looked identical.  He could override any directive or order given by anyone on the ship or within his fleet from the chair, but he seldom did so.  He had competent people working for him and trusted in their judgment.  He waved a hand over the Ident-sensor and the seat came to life.  It resembled a cocoon more than anything else, with an array of sim-screen readouts and displays that could sometimes completely surround him, should he be in the midst of a battle and needed to have thousands of bands of communication open at once.  This, of course, had never happened aboard this particular ship, but, a few centuries earlier, on spacecraft not as advanced as the A.S.S. Stingray, he had, in fact, been cocooned.  It hadn’t been all that pleasant.

The Captain, dressed in the black livery of Aegis Marines, wore his full regalia of medals and commendations.  His uniform like any military uniform worn by a high ranking officer – a double breasted coat over a thick, white shirt and black slacks with creases as sharp as razors.  He met the Keeper at his Command Chair, saluting him in their secret sign language.

His name was Edward Covington, his familial roots deep in the soils of London, England, who was, unlike so many of the Synod, not a Celeste.  He was a full blown Tech-mech, complete a mechanized nervous system interfaced with a Neuro-Nanoswarm entirely independent of other ‘Swarms and powered by a pear-sized nuclear reactor.  From what Estefan remembered only Captain Edward’s torso, neck and head remained, for the most part, flesh.  The rest was all circuitry, wiring and weaponry.  The good Captain could pack quite a punch with the myriad of lasers, missiles and ballistic armaments concealed within his limbs.

Estefan inclined his head slightly, and then glanced about, reacquainting himself with the layout of the Bridge.  The Aegis Synod didn’t built ships per a given code or set of edicts.  Instead, Draxis constructed each spaceship platform for maximum efficiency in regard to movement, command flow, and, in some cases, line-of-sight.  Therefore, every ship-type to come from the Synod’s massive factories on the dark side of the Moon could be, sometimes, vastly different than the last. 

For the most part, the rest of the crew stayed where they were.  Some of them didn’t bother to look up from the controls and displays they were monitoring.  There was the pilot seated directly before the Captains’ chair, a Senior Weaponeer seated directly next to him, who glanced at up when the Captain has passed his station.  In wide swaths to both the right and left of this central area were seated an array of navigators, technicians, logistics, intelligence and communications officers, a group of three defensive coordinators and a sub-systems moderator.  There were also engineers for flight, life support, ship integrity and evasion as well as one of Jacob’s security details at the entrance to the Bridge.  There were four of them and an additional six in a small cubical outside the command and control center
watching everything and everyone in close proximity to the Keeper.

They were all distinct and easily identifiable to the Keeper, but not by uniform.   It was the wide set of armbands they wore over each bicep that specified their role upon the Bridge.  Once
out of the CIC, though, they would remove those armbands and place them in a small holding box attuned to their ‘Swarm and their ‘Swarm alone.  The Synod made it very difficult for outsiders to identify who was who within their organization.  If captured or killed, the armbands themselves would burn off, a failsafe linked between individual ‘Swarms and the piece of fabric itself.  It was yet another layer of security keeping Estefan and his precious family from undo harm.

“M’Lord Keeper, we have been hailed by Europian Ground Control and have been instructed to remain in the upper atmosphere for the time being
, so their planetary defenses can be lowered, allowing for your private Skycar to descend to the surface,” he said in clipped military fashion.

“How did they know we were here, Captain?” he asked with an edge.  His eyes moved about the strong, angular jaw, deeply set eye sockets, and strong cheekbones of the other man.  The fact, he wore a neatly trimmed beard and mustache was rare in this day and age, but it wasn’t against re
gulations per se, so Estefan didn’t said anything about it.

The commanding officer of the Stingray cleared his throat.  “Since we all know of your long-time alliance with the Islamic Federation of Nations on Europa, I thought it a courtesy to remove our stealth capabilities a few moments prior to entering their detection net.  I thought it would be rude to do otherwise, Sir.”

The Keeper smiled and patted the Captain upon the shoulder, the metal clang beneath his heavy hand made them both look to where the sound had originated.  “It would’ve been.  You have done well, though I take it our Null-tech remains as it should, correct?”

“Absolutely, Your Imminence, my intention was to be
kind, not stupid.”  There was a smile spreading across his face now, though it didn’t match his eyes.  It was a soldiers’ grin – one that could be worn while killing.

Estefan chuckled and took his seat within the Command Chair, which began to reform itself about his body, automatically compensating for his tremendous weight.  He gazed at the vista before him
for the second time in so many minutes.

It had been a long time since he had last visited Europa himself.  It was always a Senior Lieutenant or one of the High Command he’d send in his place, knowing the representatives of the Federation preferred it that way.

Upon his last visit, there had been no atmosphere about the giant moon.  There were no clouds or roiling coriolis storms.  All those years ago, it hadn’t been entirely safe to walk the expansive ice sheets, the earthquakes and outgassing had been lethal.  There hadn’t been the vast constellation of Grav/Anti-Grav satellites above its surface either.  They’d been place in orbit, one at a time, year after year, by the Synod, fulfilling a never-ending contract that dated back to the twenty-first century.  The icy surface was protected now from the titanic tugs and pulls of Jupiter’s gravity-well.  The incessant tremors slowly became a thing of the past as the satellites forced the gravity of the Brown Dwarf, around the moon and off into space.

Looking down upon it now, Estefan felt nothing but gratitude for the brave Muslim men and women who had gone out on a limb to assist him and his family.  Of course, they had profited from that assistance, but it was beside the point.  They could’ve ignored the pleas of the fledgling Synod.  They could’ve deemed them amateur and, therefore, not worthy of an audience.  Yet, they hadn’t.  They had come to the table and negotiated.  A deal had been struck.  One pound of Diatainium and twelve point five two five billion in cash, materiel and weapons had changed hands.  The Federation had gained enough energy to pull itself out of crushing depression, while the Aegis Synod garnered tools
enough to wage all-out war against the Northern Intercontinental Alliance.  The eve of the War for Los Angeles had come.

It had been the first step in many.  The two entities would talk side by side against the powers that be, struggling to survive, comrades-in-arms, but vastly opposed in ideology.  From intercepting high-priority flash traffic to searching a method to produce Diatainium independently to pulling off the greatest heist in the history of humankind, the Islamic Federation and the Aegis Synod had trudged through time like reluctant cousins, related only by a common goal – the healthy continuance of their people.