Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.03 AE
Alpha Sector: Command Carrier ‘Eternal Light’
Supreme Commander-General Jophiel
Jophiel
Jophiel knew it was a bad idea, but why ascend to the position of Supreme Commander-General if you couldn't bend your own rules? Beneath her, the Eternal Light hummed with reassuring power, a constant reminder she had a bigger mission to oversee. She allowed the medics to change her into comfortable clothing before succumbing to the temptation to take a peek…
"Let me hold him," Jophiel ordered the frog-like Delphinium midwife who'd been about to wheel her newborn out before she'd even had a chance to see him. It served everybody’s interests if the mother parted with the child without tears, but each hybrid mother was entitled to hold their infant once before they were sent away, never to be held by their mother again.
Her heart lifted up into her throat as the midwife deposited the sleeping infant into her arms. Like all Angelic newborns, his head, wings and back were covered in downy fuzz, just like a little golden chick. She relished the sensation of his warm, flawless skin as she nuzzled him with her sensitive cheek and inhaled his baby scent. It was too early to tell for certain, but the child bore a strong resemblance to his father.
“What shall you name him, Sir?"
“Uriel.” Jophiel beamed at her crowning achievement to a species facing extinction. “He shall be called Light of the Eternal Emperor.”
“The child is overdue for the transport shuttle, Sir." The midwife reached out to whisk the child away to one of the youth training academies where hybrid children were raised, educated, and integrated into the Emperor's armies.
Jophiel snatched the infant as far away from the froglike, grasping arms as she could. “Can’t I have a little more time?”
It was an irrational emotion, but with each passing pregnancy, giving away her offspring had become harder. Especially this one. Although she tried not to form emotional attachments to her children’s sires, she’d had a hard time letting Raphael go. That he'd formed a similar attachment to her and wished to have a relationship with their son made things even more difficult. Sentiment was a weakness no military leader could afford.
“You know what a bad example that will set, Sir." The midwife's transparent inner-eyelids lifted as her pupils contracted into a concerned slit. “If the highest ranking general in the Alliance fleet refuses to complete her duty to fill the ranks, the lower ranking females will follow suit.”
“I know, but….”
“You know the consequences, Sir,” the midwife harummed with concern. Jophiel was not the first hybrid female she’d had to coax into giving up her child, but she was the most powerful and visible.
Yes. Jophiel knew more than anybody what the consequences were. The feat of science which had brought their races into existence had come with a fatal flaw. Although hybrids had the desirable traits of their DNA donors, they were plagued with the problems which occurred whenever hybrid species of any ilk were created. Whether plant or animal, hybrids came with an astronomically high rate of sterility. The more the Emperor had inbred his armies for their abilities as soldiers, the worse that defect had become.
Their only hope to avoid extinction was to be outbred again…
“Can’t you make an excuse?” Jophiel pleaded. “Say the infant is experiencing some problem that makes transport impossible.”
“You're in command, Sir,” the midwife looked skeptical. “But remember the consequences.”
“I'll put him on the next shuttle,” Jophiel reassured her. “Please … his father asked for pictures. Could you take one of me holding the baby?”
Jophiel imagined what it would be like if circumstances were different. What if she raised her children herself as other species did? Would she have to give up her career? She loved the Emperor, but her child pulled at her heart like a sun tugging a planet into orbit. And Raphael? What would he be like as a father? He'd been a sensitive and thoughtful lover; the only one who'd ever asked what her dreams were instead of using the access granted during the heat cycle to tell her his career aspirations. Yes. Raphael would make a great father and a thoughtful mate. If only…
The sharp flash brought her back to reality. She dismissed the midwife with orders to transmit the photograph to the lover she must never see again, so close had he come to breaking her resolve.
“Maybe it would be better if the Emperor confined us to a single homeworld until our numbers increase like Shay’tan does,” Jophiel whispered to her baby as soon as the Delphinium brunhilda waiting to snatch her child left the room. “Some free will! Hand you over or we go extinct!”
Uriel looked at her trustingly, his eyes already showing the brilliant blue-green color they would someday become. He reached towards her face, entangling his tiny baby fingers in her white-blonde hair. If she wavered, every female hybrid in the Alliance fleet would follow suit.
“In all of my years of military service,” Jophiel whispered, “I have never come across a single Sata’an female. I don't agree with females being the property of their husbands, but their birth rate far surpasses ours.”
Uriel yawned, giving her a good view of his little pink mouth. He closed his eyes, content, the beginnings of a tiny dimple showing on one cheek. It was the dimple which nearly did her in.
“If we weren’t going extinct,” Jophiel said. “I would keep you. And your father, too! Out of all the males I've chosen to sire offspring, I like your father the best. Giving him up was almost as hard as giving you up, little one. It's why I had to send him so far away. If he was near, I wouldn't be able to go through with this.”
Jophiel began to cry. A lot more was at stake than her own personal happiness or that of her child.
She cuddled her baby a little while longer, and then summoned the midwife. Uriel, who had been sleeping peacefully, began to squall as soon as he was taken from her arms. Jophiel suppressed her tears until the midwife left. Uriel’s cries faded as he was whisked down the hallway to a waiting shuttle to take him away as quickly as possible lest she change her mind.
She curled up in a ball and cried, the reassuring hum of her command carrier assaulting her ears like the screech of harpies flinging insults at her cowardice. Sometimes she hated being the boss…
Chapter 30