Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (19 page)

"Mikhail?" Gita whispered. She slid her hand into his, small and pale against his larger, stronger one. "Mikhail? Can you feel me? It's me? It's Ninsianna…"

For the first time that night, Mikhail moved.

"Ninsianna," he murmured.

His hand tightened around hers.

~ * ~ * ~

November 3,390 BC

Earth:  Mesopotamian Plain

Mikhail

He called into the darkened room, but nobody waited there for him.

"Ninsianna?"

Pain radiated out of his chest. It hurt! Hands. Touching him. All around him. Pleading with him to hang on.

Strong arms lifted him and cradled him on her lap, reading to him a bedtime story. The cadence of her voice rose and fell as they rocked, singing a song which felt familiar.

"Seanmháthair?"

'You must listen with your heart, chol beag,' his grandmother kissed his forehead. 'Can’t you feel your true mate calling to you?'

Thorns tore at him as he fought his way through the darkness. Pain. So much pain! The room grew even darker, more ominous, terrifying. Behind it yawned that terrible void, thrumming with unspeakable power. Horrible. Dark. Empty.

"Alone..." his voice came out a strangled cry.

The rocking continued, sometimes jarring, but all around him was the sensation of being held. He focused on the touches, searching for the one he knew would prevent him from falling into the void. All meant well, but only one touch anchored him. A hand in his, small, but something about it felt familiar.

"Ninsianna."

Mikhail tightened his grip.

~ * ~ * ~

The history of war is the history of warriors;

Few in number, mighty in influence.

Alexander, not Macedonia conquered the world.

--General George S. Patton, Jr.--

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.11 AE

Sata'an/Alliance Border

Supreme Commander-General Abaddon

Abaddon

The
Jehoshaphat
was a dark grey falcon of a warship, with twin muscular hyperdrives which rose out of her back like a pair of Angelic's wings. Launch apparatus for a planet killer curved out of her nose cone like a raptor's beak, while rail guns bristled out of her hull like sharp, grey feathers. Eight pulse cannons clustered near each of her launch bays, giving her the appearance of a war hawk flexing her talons. She could birth hundreds of fighter raptors simultaneously to swarm the enemy, and if that failed, alongside her flocked dozens of smaller battle cruisers. She was a ruthless bird of prey built for a brutal purpose, to beat back Shay'tan after the Eternal Emperor had abandoned the Alliance to fend for itself.

Some said the Alliance no longer needed the
Judgment of God
now that the Emperor had returned. That these were different times. That kinder, gentler means had become available to resolve the disputes which arose between the Alliance and the petty kingdoms.

As far as Supreme Commander-General Abaddon was concerned, that was all a crock of
tarbh!

Abaddon was a brute of a man, an old-style general who had fledged his pin feathers on the battlefield of the
old
wars which had been waged before the Emperor had lost his will to fight. He was taller than the average Angelic, burly and muscular thanks to a Seraphim grandfather who had fled that homeworld in search of adventure. He was quick to anger, and even quicker to seek revenge. He had gunship grey hair, falcon-grey wings, and steel grey eyes, accentuated by a scar which ran across his brow from his forehead to his chin, a cut given by the same Sata'anic sword which now hung forever ready at his hip.

Age had tempered Abaddon into the sword the Alliance had needed; more thoughtful, more measured as he'd moved up the ranks, mindful that it was no longer just
his
life he risked, but the lives of countless men; but that had never tempered his thirst to win. His men followed him because he was always the first to go into battle, the last to leave, and he never, ever asked anything of them that he would not do himself.

"Tighten up the formation to our starboard," Abaddon growled. "When we go at him, I want the bastard to know it's me."

"Yes, Sir," Major Pharzuphel said.

Pharzuphel was an efficient second-in-command, thoughtful, slow to anger, and cautious to carry out the letter of the Emperor's law; the kind of Angelic the Youth Training Academies had been churning out with increasing regularity. She was the yin to his yang, not quite a pacifist, for she was brave when she needed to be, but whenever he sought engagement, Pharzuphel always urged restraint. Within seconds, the blue triangles displayed on the three-dimensional hologram moved back into a perfect 'V'. Pharzuphel counseled no lesser actions. Both knew the time for caution had long since passed.

Abaddon gave a grunt of satisfaction. For twenty-five years the Emperor had kept the
Jehoshaphat
confined to her nest, only trotting her out whenever he needed to remind Shay'tan that the Immortals weren't the
only
ones that could make the old dragon bleed. Except for a few border skirmishes, this was the first time the
Jehoshaphat
had engaged in a
real
battle since the Emperor had come back from his extended 'vacation.'

How many amongst this fleet had seen the kinds of carnage
he
had? A few of the longer-lived Angelics? Not many. The Leonids had, although not against Shay'tan. The Centauri had suffered staggering losses against the old dragon, but not within the past generation. They were kids, all of them; ill-experienced, brave, but unprepared for the kind of war Parliament had just authorized Abaddon to wage.

Ominous red triangles blinked closer to defend the border of the now-defunct Third Empire. All around him, younger crewmen moved with anxious hyperactivity, hurrying, finishing up the busy-work, as if that could change the disparity in numbers they were about to face.

"What's our deep-space sonar picking up behind them?"

Abaddon pointed behind the overwhelming armada Shay'tan had amassed to engage them at the place where Lucifer had died.

"Nothing, Sir," Pharzuphel said. "Whatever he's got, they're there."

Abaddon stared at the two opposing lines of warships which were on a collision course. The red triangles representing Shay'tan's war fleet outnumbered the Alliance's blue ones six-to-one, but Abaddon was used to defeating overwhelming numbers. It was how he'd earned his nickname
The Destroyer.
It was what he
couldn't
see which worried him.

"Send out drones to scout behind the planetoids here … here … and here." Abaddon pointed to the string of asteroids which had once been the planet
Tyre
, the kind of places a clever dragon could set a trap.

"May I speak freely, Sir?" Pharzuphel asked.

"Speak," Abaddon grunted. He was a man of few words who'd gotten where he was today by
listening
to the boots on the ground. When he did speak, people listened, because if they didn't, his next words were usually spoken with the point of his sword.

"Perhaps it's simply a show of force?" Pharzuphel pointed at the amassed Sata'anic armada. "It's no secret we're only looking to take back what was taken from our Prime Minister."

"Those planets weren't
taken,
" Abaddon gave a sharp laugh which sounded like a falcon's hunting cry. He pointed to the border that looked like somebody had gerrymandered long, grasping talons out of the Sata'an Empire to clutch each planet which was habitable. "Lucifer
handed
those planets to Shay'tan as punishment for his mother's death."

Pharzuphel blanched, but she did not contradict him. She was a dove sent to placate the hawk after the Emperor had returned and put him out to pasture. Abaddon suspected the
real
reason the Emperor had sent the pretty, beige-winged cadet was to entice him to retire so that under the law he could form a permanent relationship with her, but Pharzuphel had not been interested in an infertile old goat such as himself, and he had not used his rank to pressure her into a mating appointment after his natural lack-of-charm had failed to woo her. She
was
an efficient second, even if she was a bit too idealistic.

Abaddon's lip twitched into a rare, hawkish grin. Yes. Pharzuphel had never seen any
real
battles. So in a way, he'd get to pop her cherry after all?

He noted the plaintive, dove-eyed stare his weapons-officer Valac gave his second in command. Fraternization between active members of the military was forbidden, but ever since Abaddon had taken a human wife, he'd become lax about enforcing the letter of Alliance law. Which reminded him…

"Is the offloading complete?" Abaddon asked.

"They're not happy about it, Sir," Pharzuphel said. She tucked her wings tightly against her back. "But … Sir? Did you have to send the pregnant hybrids, too?"

"Yes," Abaddon grunted.

"But they're not civilians," Pharzuphel lowered her voice so the other officers on the bridge would not hear her disagree. "They have as much of a stake in this battle as anyone else in the Alliance."

Abaddon noted the way his weapons-officer opened his mouth as if he wished to say something. Pharzuphel shot the man an icy stare. The weapons officer turned back to his battle station, his hands gripping the controls. Abaddon stared up at his second-in-command, an efficient officer, but a bit too romantic, a characteristic they shared, although
The Destroyer
was careful to hide his tender side from his crew.

"They will be a distraction," Abaddon said. "We're too close to extinction to risk losing both a hybrid, and also their unborn child."

"But if we find the human homeworld," Pharzuphel said hopefully, "it won't
matter
anymore."

"We have not found the human homeworld
yet,"
Abaddon fixed his stern, hawk-like gaze upon her body language, "and even when we do, not even Shay'tan sends his children into war."

He noted the way Pharzuphel fidgeted with a chain worn beneath her uniform, a gesture he, himself, had done until Lucifer's breathtaking rebellion had brought his forbidden marriage out into the open. Dog tags? Or something else? Abaddon closed his eyes and inhaled.

Yes. That growing attractiveness the males in the ship had begun exhibiting towards Pharzuphel a few weeks ago suddenly made sense. It was a common ploy, to feign missing a heat cycle in order to avoid being forced into the Emperor's breeding program and assigned a stranger to mate with to introduce genetic diversity. The scent of HCGT was faint, but now that he looked for it, the pregnancy hormone was hard to miss.

His steel grey eyes stared into her guilty blue ones.