Slavers of Antar
By
DocPaul
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Chapter
Eighteen: Propagation
“How
is she?”
Michael
watched as the doctor gave Maria more antibiotics. “She’s not doing well.
Your medicine is primitive.”
“Perhaps
by your standards.” Thoth came into the room. “We were once able to heal
with thought, some more gifted than others. Over time, we slowly lost that
ability.”
“There
is a doctor among the people you took in the raid, Julia. She can heal Maria.”
Thoth
gestured at a guard. “Bring me the doctor.” He looked at Maria. Her face was
pale with pink patches on her cheeks indicating her fever. Her hair was wet,
plastered to her head, and she was shivering. Thoth looked at Michael. “I
don’t want anything to happen to the Princess as well. She is important to
me.”
“Care
to tell me why? If her genetics are resistant to your ability to manipulate, and
my nearly useless, then what is our purpose?”
Thoth
took a deep breath, but he was saved from answering by the appearance of Julia
with a guard. Julia entered the room, her eyes immediately going to Michael and
then to Maria.
“Maria.”
Michael
took Julia’s arm leading her to Maria. “Can you do anything?”
Julia
looked at Thoth. “My medical scanner and supplies. They were taken with me. Do
you still have them?”
Thoth
nodded to the doctor to get Julia’s bag. He waited as the doctor returned
handing Julia her medical supplies. She quickly scanned Maria.
“Her
immune system is down. It’s the injections I gave her to simulate pregnancy.
It reduced her resistance.” Julia quickly loaded a few injectors. “I need to
give her a few protein injections, vitamins, and a stronger antibiotic.”
Looking at the doctor she held out her hand for his notepad. “What did you
give her?”
He
handed over the medical pad. Julia quickly read it. “A fourth generational
antibiotic. It’s not strong enough. She is almost septic.” Julia quickly
adjusted her scanner. “Do you have a sample of the drug you used?”
Thoth
watched as his doctor and Julia titrated two antibiotics checking for cross
resistance and interaction. It took three combinations before Julia finally
loaded an injector.
“This
should do it.” She quickly injected Maria three times with the proteins,
vitamins and antibiotics. “I’ll need to stay with her. She could have a
reaction. If she doesn’t respond within the next few cycles, I’ll need to
try something else.”
“Stay.”
Thoth left with the doctor leaving two guards.
Michael
sat down on the bed. “How is she doing?”
“She’ll
get better, I promise.” Julia glanced over at the guards. “How did this
happen?”
“We
came out too close to the system. The gravitational flux pulled us into the
planet. We crashed.”
“God,
how bad was it?”
Michael
looked at Maria. “Very bad. They healed the surface, but internally, she is
still mending.”
Julia
quickly ran a scan. “I can fix some of it.”
Michael
kept an eye on his wife. “She was impaled by a piece of metal. She wanted me
to leave her behind.”
Julia
squeezed Michael’s hand in comfort. “She would.”
Michael
picked up Maria’s hand. He kissed it, burying his face in her palm. “I know
what she had you do.” Michael glanced over at Julia. “It worked. I’m
better.”
“Good.”
Michael
looked at the doctor. “How are you? The others?”
“There
is only me, Liz and Liam of the ones they took.”
Michael
breathed in hard. “Liam, how is he?”
“I
don’t know for sure. They put him in protective custody so he would be
shielded from others’ thoughts.” Julia glanced over at the guards quickly.
“I think he’s fine. He talks to us in our heads. He is feeding feelings of
sedition and insurrection in the minds of the guards.”
“Smart
kid. Kyle would be proud of him. He traversed shielding, so he’s a chip off
the old block, his father’s son—strong.”
Julia
bit her lip. “Michael?” She glanced over at Michael whose eyes were on Maria
only.
“Yeah?”
“Sean—”
Julia cleared her throat. Michael glanced at her. “Is Sean okay?”
Michael
didn’t know what to say. “He will be once he gets you back.”
Julia
nodded clenching a hand that still held a mark on it. “I—” Julia cleared
her throat. “He’s angry. I didn’t know he could feel so much anger. He
doesn’t show it, but I can feel it.”
Sean.
He was an unknown to many. Michael shook his head.
It
took a moment for Michael to really understand what Julia was saying. “You
feel him?”
Julia
shrugged. She didn’t understand it herself, and it wasn’t something she
really wanted to discuss with Michael.
“Julia,
there is no bond between you and Sean. How can that be? I mean you haven’t
even slept together, and—” Michael seemed to finally hear what he was
saying. “Um, I mean—I’m assuming that—”
“It’s
okay, Michael. I know you boys talk about us girls.” She smiled to herself.
“Told you that he couldn’t get into my bed, did he?”
Michael
smirked. “He used a little bit different language, but yeah.”
“Figures.”
“You’re
missing the point, Julia.”
“Okay,
I’m missing the point. You want to spell it out for me?”
Michael
laughed softly. “Sean has been bitching nonstop about how he got left out in
the old ‘love bug’ disease. Then he bonds to you without a touch or even a
real date. I’d almost call it love at first sight. He probably didn’t beat
me and Max to the punch only because he didn’t meet you first.”
“Oh,
that is a comfort—for him I’m sure.” Julia pushed her hair behind her ear.
“What if the object of his affection doesn’t return them?”
“Poor
Sean.”
“Oh
please! Don’t feel sorry for him. The man is a menace, torturing me for almost
a year.” Julia shook her head. “The man is a brush with insanity. And I am
crazy to ever remotely return his affections.”
Michael
swallowed a smile. “Okay, then poor Julia.”
“You
better believe it! Poor me, indeed. That man has driven me half insane, and if
there was some type of justice, I wouldn’t care an iota about him.” Julia
couldn’t help it after a year of having Sean pursue her. He snuck in under her
radar, and the man couldn’t have everything easy. Julia sat back staring at
the sleeping Maria. Sighing heavily, she shook her head, “I’d give anything
to see him again, to have him terrorize me with his cooking.”
“Get
Maria well, and then we’ll leave,” Michael promised.
~~~
“Michael?”
Her
voice called him from sleep. Waking, the first thing that hit him was that she
was no longer burning up. Turning to his side, he framed her face tilting it to
look at him. She looked better. Her skin was still pale—or at the very least,
paler than was usual for her. Maria had the most incredible skin. It at times
appeared translucent, and with her large green eyes and the beautiful redness of
her lips, she was often fairylike in appearance. With her stature, it made
people underestimate her, think her slight and dainty. She was neither. Maria
could toss him around a gym without breaking a sweat.
Michael
kissed her softly resting his head against her. “Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey.”
Maria sighed as her hand moved over his warm skin. “I feel better. Julia—was
Julia here?”
“Yes.
She looked you over and took care of you.”
Maria
kissed his lips gently, then bit one to quickly lick away the sting. “Sorry to
scare you.”
“Yeah,
well we’ll be talking about that later.”
Maria
moved closer into him, her arm going around his neck, while her other hand moved
down his body. Her mouth found the side of his neck biting the corded muscle
there, smiling in his skin at the soft moan he gave.
“I
could offer to make it up to you.”
“You
could, but—” Michael glanced at her. “I hardly think you’re in any
condition to do that right now. It could take a long time, and I’d hate to
wake to find you sick again.”
Maria
ignored him, her mouth nibbling on the side of his, to take his in a kiss.
“Tell you what—I’ll just do what I can, and then you can take over if I
get too tired to finish it.”
Michael
chuckled, “Did you just offer to let me pilot?”
“Such
a control freak—and you do it so well,” Maria pointed out.
Michael
laughed again as his hand went to rest low on her side, covering the area that
once had been impaled, and now was healed. Staring at his hand low on her side,
he had a flash, a cognitive memory that soon fled. That was the second time he
swore his hand had once rested on her side thusly.
Thoth
watched them on the monitor, his hands clenched. There was something in their
mating, the way they moved together in tandem that made his stomach clench.
Never in his short actual life, or in this current one had he ever felt such a
loss at being without a mate, but watching them, it was apparent, that in the
tradeoff over the years they had lost something.
~~~
Michael
and Maria walked into the chamber together, side by side. Michael resisted the
urge to support a still weak Maria, but refrained. She would not thank him for
his concern if it made her appear weak and diminutive in the face of their
enemies.
A
group of leaders stood when the Princess of Antar and her mate entered the room,
all of them more than a little interested in seeing the last direct descendent
of Earth.
Thoth
was the last to stand.
“Princess,
I trust you are feeling better?”
Maria
nodded in acknowledgement, but did not speak. She stepped back a slight pace to
allow Michael to take the lead.
“We
are here. What is it you wish?” Michael demanded, his patience at a new low,
which for him meant he had none left.
“A
compromise—a peace,” said a young woman who stood beside a man that looked
almost identical to her. “I am
“I
am Larek,” said another man. He turned and gestured to a few others in the
room. “This is Hanar, Sero and Kathana. We comprise the collective ruling
families of the Antarian solar system. Ours is a long tale, one of constant war,
and near annihilation. Centuries of cloning, and we as a solar system find
ourselves on the verge of extinction.”
“You
wish our alliance? Our help?” Michael made a snorting noise, unbelieving of
the request. “For a hundred generations your people raped and pillaged my
wife’s homeworld annealing your genetics to theirs. Your constant invasion and
intrusion in to her world forced her people, the Ancients to use technology to
shift their very planet to another universe.”
“The
Granilith,” said Hanar in wonder.
“The
Granilith,” Michael spit out in rage, the very machine that made two universes
bleed for countless generations. “Its inception and use was a direct result of
your parasitical ways. You are a power hungry species bent of stealing
technology beyond your own understanding. You have survived on the genius,
innovation, and genetics of others, pillaging and raping the very soils you
steal from. Situation on the cusp between two universes, you have been a menace
to them both.”
“We
do what we must to survive,” Thoth admitted quietly. “Our morals are not
yours, but one constant we share is a desire to continue. It has been the sole
purpose of our progenitors—of Khivar.”
“Khivar
was a tyrannical miscreant with genocide as his protocol. Tell me why you are
different? I just witnessed the path of destruction you left on world across
this known galaxy. We buried the dead.”
The
room was silent. The woman, Helena looked to the others. “I told you they
would have no reason to help us. Khivar taught them to fear and hate, and this
was the only recourse we had left.” The woman had no remorse for the dead,
only the remorse of failing to meet a goal.
Maria
finally moved forward. “That can’t be true. Slaughter at the scale you
practice, even between warring factions spreading to innocent worlds can have no
excuse. Your solar system is cloaked as are your ships. That requires technology
and power—technology beyond what this world demonstrates in knowledge of
culture, science and even medicine.”
Larek
sighed glancing at the others before talking, “Much that we once knew is lost.
In successive generations of cloning, we lost the knowledge of how things work, retaining only the knowledge that they did
work. Science was necessary to understand others technology and genetics, but
all the advances gained came from outside our worlds.”
Maria
was confused. The Antarians and the Others despite being in a civil war spanning
over a thousand generations still joined together to defend themselves from
outsiders. Why they were unable to continue a truce in other aspects of their
lives was baffling. If they could’ve found a peace, they might have begun to
advance in other areas beyond war.
“You
were setting your worlds up to fail. A lifetime of war and strife can only have
one outcome.” The frown between Maria’s eyes smoothed away as she came to
understand what was happening between the different factions. “The raiders
were in two groups, Thoth warriors and the Four Squares of the Royals—you were
in a race to find the answer to your propagation problems independently of the
other, in competition.” Horror moved across Maria’s face as she faced the
group of allies joined only against a common foe, but forever enemies. “You
would have let the others run to extinction, even if you had found the
solution.”
Michael,
who had been silent, felt it. A sense of doom, a movement of memory, perhaps a
thought of what could’ve been had his world not stopped the ongoing genocide
and blood feud that threatened their extinction. Centuries of twin births had
saved them, as had a rigorous mating urges, and like the worlds of the Antarian
solar system, they had tasted their own end. The difference was they did not
seek to remove reproduction, but rather to embrace it as a means to repopulate.
“That
is why you burned the worlds behind you, leaving nothing but the dead,”
Michael said softly. Leave nothing for the enemy except the very ash of bones.
“You left nothing for those who follow to exploit.”
“The
Royals have successive generations of cloning beyond us,” Thoth explained.
“They mated to Larek, Hanar and Sero’s world long ago. They would’ve mated
to Kathanna’s, but they proved incompatible.”
“They
did not intermix with your world?” Maria guessed.
Zan
snorted making a face of disgust. “Would you breed with a viper?” Though
they found it distasteful, in truth, all the worlds of the Antarian system had
found a way to interbreed—in essence, they were the same race—all of them,
only held apart by political ties and boundaries.
“None
of you breed now, do you? The ability to reproduce was lost long ago.” Maria
looked at the people that were a branch from a stem of her own people sapling
off long ago. It was a travesty to see such potential squandered and wasted over
the centuries, and only the cruelest and most vicious of attributes remain.
“Not
for over thirty generations has a newborn child been born to any world,”
“You
seek a progenitor seed among the seedlings of Earth, a new hope.” Maria felt
the nausea rising in her stomach. There was a power here—a power and a
desperation. It was this very thirst for power and diseased desperation that led
to the genocide of her world, Tess’s, and countless more.
“Maria,”
Michael frowned at his wife as her color paled to a light gray, her eyes dilated
to a void of pinpoint darkness. “Maria? What is it?”
“To
do recombination, to reintroduce the hybridization they need would require
infinite power, a power great enough to create links between genomes—a
Granolith to power the process.”
Michael
understood only too well. He looked about the room. “Where is it?”
Michael’s voice boomed out in a thunderous roar, anger darkening his face.
“Where?”
Thoth
nodded to a man standing quietly at a distant wall. With a movement of his hand
as he activated a panel, the wall opened to a chamber.
Maria
and Michael both moved forward, neither of them speaking as they stared at the
working large machine.
The
Granilith.
“Aw,
fuck me,” Michael swore.