Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (9 page)

Parliament was so vast
and huge, with so many divergent interests, that it was a wonder
anything
got
done here.  For hundreds of years Lucifer had brokered deals between the
factions that threatened to splinter this Alliance into thousands of squabbling
nation-states and yoked their energies together to keep their common enemy,
Shay'tan, at bay.  But if they adopted this trade deal, that unifying force
might disappear.  Without the threat of war, could the citizens set aside their
differences long enough to take a good, hard look at what they were doing to
the species that defended them? 

"Out of all the
species in this Alliance," Lucifer said.  "Only one group has been
systematically denied the benefits of full membership that every
other
sentient species enjoys."  He paused.  "Hybrids." 

He curled forward one
beautiful white wing, the wing which meant he could never have a voice as
anything other than the Emperor's mouthpiece because that wing had not evolved
naturally.  "In the beginning, hybrids were excluded because people feared
what would happen if we abused the genetic enhancements grafted onto our DNA
and attempted to seize power."

There was a grumble
amongst the ancient races that had been in existence longer than there had been
an Alliance.  Too many well-funded business interests were vested in
maintaining what was essentially a slave army.  Lucifer was too savvy to fight
a losing battle.  He had narrowed the issue to a single battle he could win. 
The trade agreement.

"I'm
not
saying that, at the time, these fears were not without basis," Lucifer
neatly side-stepped the issue.  "In the time of the ancient Cherubim such
a thing happened with the Oni, and 74,000 years ago Shay'tan's Nephilim
rebelled and tried to seize control of the galaxy for themselves.  We are not
here today to debate the costs and benefits of elevating hybrids to full
membership status.  No!  That is an issue for another day."

He held out his hand
as though offering something.  "We are here, ladies and gentlemen, because
Shay'tan has come bearing an olive branch.  Before we, as my Spiderid brother
so aptly put it,
'tell Shay'tan to stick his trade deal up his scaly tail,'
we need to look at
all
of the costs and benefits of that trade deal. 
Including the cost of replacing our dying armies if we spurn Shay'tan's
overture of peace."

The grumbling from the
ancient races died down.  Money.  All they ever cared about was money.  Lucifer
had dealt with them long enough to understand that if he could put the plight
of his species in terms of currency, and not just the tragedy unfolding before
their eyes, they would sell the Emperor out in a heartbeat.  To get a
two-thirds override, he needed them.  But first, he must win over the races
that might be inclined to
care
about his species.

"Once upon a
time," Lucifer said, "the root race which spawned our species still
walked amongst us."  He walked over to the side of the platform to stand
in front of an empty chair, a seat once occupied by the newly-extinct race of
Wheles.  "Because they saw us as their children, they watched out for us. 
But 74,000 years ago, an asteroid hit Nibiru.  Just like that," he snapped
his fingers, "all of humanity was destroyed." 

He gave his deceased
progenitors a moment of silence. 

"The Emperor
tried to reseed their colonies on other worlds," Lucifer said, "but
every single one of their colonies withered on the vine.  Humans had evolved
beyond their baser impulses, and without those instincts, they lacked
sufficient willpower to survive once their species was severed from their
beloved Nibiru.  When humans went extinct, they took with them the closest
thing we hybrids had to a homeworld."

He spread his arms in
the T-like posture of a victim strapped to a Tokoloshe feeding pole.  His wings
drooped as though too heavy to lift.  He knew which subconscious chord the pose
mimicking a famous religious icon of a martyr offering himself as a sacrifice
for the greater good would strike.

“This lack of a voice
was not a problem when hybrids walked amongst the races the Emperor hoped to
shepherd towards inclusion.”  Lucifer made eye contact with two Delphinium
delegates, a newer sentient race.  “A hybrid base meant Shay'tan wouldn't dare
attack.  The newer sentient races got to know, and trust, the hybrids that
protected them, and in turn they made sure our species didn't languish without
a voice.” 

The Delphinium
colonies bordered the Sata’an Empire.  They'd been attacked the moment a
Merfolk base had closed.

“But as the Alliance
expanded,” Lucifer walked over to a delegate who represented a colony on the
Sata'an/Alliance border, “and the galaxy looked to the Alliance to police their
problems for them, our races were taken
off
of your worlds and put into
ships in space.” 

The Leonids had kicked
Shay’tan off the colony the delegate represented 1,500 years ago.  Nearly
30,000 brave lions and lionesses had sacrificed their lives to free that world,
more than existed today.  Now, it was all the Leonids could do to put a few
senior officers on each ship, staffed largely by the Spiderids they had freed.

“The newer sentient
races benefited from hybrid protection.”  Lucifer walked over to the Darda’il
delegate, a race of hive-mind bacteriods who had been with the Alliance since
its inception.  “But because they rarely saw us anymore, they forgot what it
had been like before the Emperor created four species of genetically engineered
super-soldiers to keep the evolved races safe.” 

The Darda’il had
participated in the First Galactic War and witnessed the galaxy nearly be
destroyed by Moloch, the impetus for creating the Alliance, and the hybrids, in
the first place.  Because of their hive mind, every Darda’il in existence
possessed memories of those dark, early days, granting a kind of immortality to
organisms long since deceased.

“Citizens began to
take for granted the
reason
they were being left alone,” Lucifer made
eye contact with the lone Cherubim delegate, “and allowed to go about their
business.  They just assumed they were entitled to hybrid protection.  The same
way they just … assume … the Cherubim will always be here to protect the
Emperor.” 

The Cherubim had
stopped incarnating into the material realm and evolved into the next higher
plane of existence just as the Wheles had done before them.  Only the fact the
Emperor's backup species, the hybrids, had been inbred into sterility kept the
Cherubim queen and a small colony of warrior-monks here in this universe to
protect him.

“So long as there was
no draft to reach into households and draw any citizen, from any walk of life,
into the military to fight Alliance battles,” Lucifer nodded at the Muqqibat
delegate, “it was of no concern.  They paid their taxes, and they were kept
safe.  End of problem.”  The Muqqibat were an ancient race of wingless,
dragon-like serpents, and one of the fiercest opponents of hybrid emancipation.

“To meet the
shortfall,” Lucifer gestured as though throwing an object into the air, “we
pulled hybrid bases off your planets and put them in command carriers in
orbit.  And their numbers dropped.  So then we told hybrids they had to serve
500 years in the military before we would let them retire, not 20 years like
the rest of you, because if they don't get killed in battle they can live that
long.  And still their numbers dropped.”

Lucifer paused in
front of several Mantoid delegates, a newer sentient race.  Few 'real' Alliance
citizens were willing to enlist voluntarily and allow themselves to be used as
cannon fodder to fill the hybrid shortfall.  His
Path to Citizenship
program had ostensibly been created to allow legal immigration from the
borderlands, but it had
really
been to avoid the draft.  Mantoids had
embraced the program, filling the military with so many soldiers that, when the
first generation had hit the twenty year mark and retired with full citizenship
rights, they had immediately voted their homeworld full Alliance membership.

“Some of our newest
races even found cave paintings from a time before they discovered
technology," Lucifer said.  "Their ancestors painted pictures of
winged men, man-lions, Merfolk, and half-horse creatures saving their kind from
destruction.” 

Until their society
had matured enough to make contact, Mantoids had believed the hybrids were
gods.  There was still much romanticization about the hybrids they now served
alongside.

“But it didn't end
there!”  Lucifer's voice rose in anger.  “We wouldn't want Shay’tan to come in
and tell us what to do!!!  NO!!!  Haven forbid!!!  So when their numbers
dropped even further, we pulled hybrid
females
off of your planets and
made
them
start fighting, as well!  No surprise
there
when our
birth rate took a plunge into the toilet!  You can’t shoot your enemy when
you're carrying your toddler!”  Lucifer moved to stand in front of two female
delegates.  Both had recently come back from maternity leave.

“And then 600 years
ago we told the hybrids it was
forbidden
to get married so long as they
are obligated to serve in the military,” Lucifer said.  “Or even sire offspring
with the same partner twice!  Because the genetic modifications the Emperor
gave us to maintain
these…" 
He yanked out a snowy white feather
with contempt and held it aloft for all to see. 

"These …
wings.
 
These wings and the other genetic modifications which enslave our species to
serve the rest of you are a
recessive
gene!  They are not
natural
for
a humanoid to possess!"

He threw the feather
into the air.  A ray of sunlight caught if from the atrium far above, as though
the goddess herself wished to say
see! 
It floated down amongst the
sparkles of dust, only the shuffling of feet and an occasional cough breaking
the silence as the feather hit the ground.

"These
…
improvements
… require so much selective breeding to maintain so they don't
simply disappear from our backs that we have inbred ourselves into
extinction!"  Lucifer flapped his wings, the crisp
snap
echoing
throughout Parliament.  "Because you wanted us to maintain
these,
our
ranks have dwindled so low that genetic diversity is now an issue.”

He walked over to an
Electrophori delegate and stared down the conservative religious leader from an
ancient world of sentient eels.  That delegate's homeworld loathed hybrids as
'abominations' and was vociferously opposed to
anything
which would help
them survive. 

“
You
can get
married?” Lucifer shouted.  “But
we
can’t?  Because you need us to make
lots of babies who have
these
for your enemies to shoot at?"  He
flapped his wings again, the wind they made blowing the delegates paperwork off
of his desk.  "What are we?  Animals you can just breed for slaughter?”

The eel's tail
twitched in anger, a jolt of electricity visible in the dim light of the
chamber.  Delegates on either side hissed at him in disapproval.  Somewhere
behind him several delegates whispered ‘hypocrite.’ 

“Even
Shay’tan
doesn’t do that to his own citizens!!!”  Lucifer slammed his fist down upon the
railing and glared at the religious leader who bad-mouthed hybrid females for
being ‘promiscuous’ when hybrids didn't have any choice in the matter.

“And now … now…“ 
Lucifer's voice choked up with emotion as tears came into his eyes.  “The
moment a hybrid baby is born, before his umbilical cord is even cut, a
representative from the Emperor’s youth training academy is there to snatch him
away from his mother and whisk him away to defend the Alliance.”

Lucifer stopped and
looked around the enormous coliseum.  Delegates leaned forward in their seats,
hanging off the balconies like vultures who had settled in a dead tree, waiting
for something to finish dying so they could feast upon the carrion.

“Babies.”  The sob was
audible in Lucifer's voice as tears rolled down his cheeks.  “We indoctrinate
babies less than a minute old because we can't afford to have their parents
take a few years off from defending us to raise their own offspring.”

Lucifer’s wings
drooped, trembling with emotion.  He turned, eyes shut, away from the cameras. 
The hall was so quiet you could have heard a pin-feather drop.  He coughed and
rubbed his cheek with one sleeve.  His legislative aide rushed out with a glass
of water.  Lucifer gulped the liquid and composed his features before turning
back to face the assembly.

“We give all these
great speeches about free will,” Lucifer's voice was weary.  “But from the
moment they take their first breath, before they are even severed from their
mothers blood supply, we brainwash them to fight to protect us.  At least
Shay’tan waits until his citizens hit puberty before he indoctrinates them.”

He let the delegates
squirm in their seats as he shoved their faces into the hideous reality they
refused to deal with as they bickered about commerce and taxes.

“The hybrids have
given this Alliance everything they have,” Lucifer said.  “Everything.  Even
their newborn children.  And now they can’t even give us that anymore.  They
have nothing left to give."