Angel in the Badlands: space opera sci fi romance (Sons of Amber Book 1) (10 page)

Mike left, whistling as he sauntered down the companionway. He’d given Zeke a lot of answers, but quite a few questions as well. How could Zeke really know if he was in love with Angela? He didn’t know what love was. It wasn’t something they had covered in his accelerated training sessions. It had been assumed there would be no room for love in the life of one of the Sons of Amber.

Zeke had been designed to be a stud, providing service for any female who wanted it, supplying sperm for the next generation of babies, to rebuild the human race. He hadn’t been designed to find one woman and settle down the way their human ancestors had done before the virus. He didn’t know if it was even possible that he could. But Zeke was a Wildcard, after all, and he was willing to risk everything for a chance at happiness with Angela.

He turned back towards the door to his cabin, only to find her blinking up at him through teary eyes.

“Is it true?” Angela asked, something he thought might be hope filling her wide eyes. “Do you love me?”

In that moment, all of Zeke’s questions were answered. If ever a man loved a woman, he definitely loved Angela. He moved slowly forward to take her into his arms.

“I do.” He placed tender kisses all over her face. “I love you with all my heart, my angel.”

“I love you too,” she said softly, returning his embrace.

Warmth flooded his heart. A pure, beaming, light of joy and radiant hope filled him. He wanted it all in that moment. He wanted her forever, bound to him and him to her. If it were at all possible, he would make it happen, he vowed.

“Do your people still perform marriage ceremonies?” Slowly, she nodded. “Then…” he took a moment to get down on one knee, holding her hand and looking up into her eyes, “…will you marry me, Angela? Will you be my wife?”

Hope, joy and love lit her sparkling eyes. “You bet I will.”

She laughed and cried at the same time, shrieking when he stood and lifted her up into his arms, twirling her around the main cabin. It was a long time before they left the ship, going back to the settlement to tell the others their happy news.

A few days later, they were married and given a traditional wedding feast according to the customs of Angela’s people. But only after a long talk with General Hawkins, all three of Angela’s brothers, Mother Rachel and Dr. Waithe.

Zeke was eventually granted permission to marry her, but the general, Dr. Waithe and Mother Rachel had to give their permission first.

General Hawkins demanded Zeke submit to an empathic scan to test the depth of his feelings for Angela. Zeke agreed while Angela protested, but after both Angela and her mother had a heart to heart talk with her father, he gave his reluctant blessing.

Mother Rachel was easy to convince. Apparently she had foreseen they would wind up together for a very long time. It was Amber who put up more of an argument.

“But Zeke, are you certain?” Dr. Waithe had asked gently, her voice a little tinny through the speaker on her environmental suit. She couldn’t risk contaminating the settlement, so she had to wear the slim suit that provided her own air supply. “You know why you were created, and the goals we have for saving our species.”

Surprisingly, it was Rachel who stepped in. “He can still fulfill his role in your plan, Doctor. But why should he and Angela be denied happiness while he does so?”

“Dr. Amber,” Zeke pled his own case, “I love Angela and she loves me. I never expected anything like this to happen, but it has and now I know I’ll never be complete without her in my life. I’ll still do my part to save the human race. I know my duty and the contribution I can make. I don’t take that lightly, but I also know I need Angela.”

Dr. Waithe sighed audibly, but Zeke took her soft smile behind the clear bubble of her suit’s headpiece as a good sign. “Oh, Zeke. You’re not the first man to fall in love, and I doubt you’ll be the last.” She reached up and cupped his cheek with her gloved hand, the maternal gesture surprising him. “I just never expected my boys to want to marry. I guess I should have thought about it, but I didn’t.”

“It’s hard to let them leave the nest, isn’t it?” Rachel moved up behind Amber.

The doctor chuckled. “I never really thought of myself as a clingy, overprotective mother.” Amber turned to share a laugh with Rachel, who nodded understandingly.

“Every woman has it in her to protect her young. Ezekiel is your son as much as if you had carried him in your womb. The connection between you is strong and will not diminish.”

Oddly it was Rachel who reassured the brilliant geneticist. Zeke watched in awe as the two women grew teary eyed discussing his wedding plans.

“You’ll have to stay here for the time being, of course,” Amber said, businesslike once again. “But we have to leave a contingent here anyway for the colony’s protection, so that works out fine. I’ll still want sperm donations every cycle, just like your brothers who’ll be stationed here.”

Rachel chuckled and winked at him. “I’m sure Sister Angela will have no objection to helping him with that.”

All three laughed and the atmosphere relaxed. Dr. Amber stepped right up to him and took his hand with her gloved fingers.

“I want you to be happy, Zeke. You’re a special young man and I want only the best for you.”

Zeke squeezed her hand. “Angela
is
the best. You’ll see.”

And so permission was granted and Zeke was allowed to marry his unexpected love. Mike stood up as Zeke’s best man, while Agatha filled the role of Angela’s bride’s maid. Amber and Rachel sat beside each other, both beaming as a stately, older, male priest recited the traditional words that would join Zeke and his angel forevermore.

“I never expected this,” Amber said a short while later to Rachel as they shared a moment of quiet before she had to leave.

“I know.”

“Is it true you can really see the future?”

Rachel tilted her head. “And do you, a woman of science, believe in such things?”

Amber’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen many things in my time, and I’ve studied the human brain in some detail. I know there are still many things we cannot explain about psi abilities and that they do exist in some rare cases. I also know that the population of Espia had more than its share of psychic phenomena before the virus.”

Mother Rachel nodded deeply. “We are the Order of Chion. All of our ancestors had some psychic ability when they left Espia for this planet, but it does not always breed true. Most of us have the abilities of our ancestors, while some do not.”

“But you do.” It wasn’t a question.

Again, Rachel nodded. “I have foreseen an end to this plague, and many happy marriages among your Sons. The only advice I can offer at this time is to not stand in their way. The love they find with the women lucky enough to claim them is hope for our future, Amber. There is a solution out there, and you will see it in your lifetime. Your Sons will play their role, but unexpected aid will come and when it does, you need to remember your goals, not the tragedies of yesterday. You must get past your anger and look to the future—as must we all.”

Dr. Waithe thought about the seer’s words for a long moment. Rachel offered hope, but intimated great changes ahead, especially for her Sons. If she was to be believed, they would start to marry in greater numbers. Amber had to make new calculations and try to anticipate what this unexpected development might do to her carefully laid plans.

“I’ll take your words to heart, Rachel. Thanks for giving me hope.” She turned to go, knowing her ship was waiting for her to depart.

“Just remember, Doctor,” Rachel called softly after her, “Fate plays a much larger role in our existence than you might expect. Do not discount the power of destiny, or that of the most unstoppable force in the universe… love.”

Epilogue

Several Years Earlier

Dr. Amber Waithe looked at her Sons with pride. They were all the finest specimens of manhood, most of whom clearly exhibited the dominant and protective genes she had labored over, and some showing signs of being risk-takers and pioneers. They were all physically strong, but were also mentally superior. They had high-level intelligence and steady personalities, cultivated by their extensive education, and the very dedicated women who saw that they were well-adjusted as they grew from lab-born embryos. They were the very best she could design.

And they all bred true.

Each and every one of them was totally immune from the alien virus that had already killed so many others. The enemy thought they had struck the final blow in the Unwinnable War, but they were wrong. It was Amber and her sons who would prevail in the end. The jits’suku had not ended humanity within three generations, as they had planned. The virus they unleashed after their crushing defeat at Markesh had killed millions of human men, but the enemy had not counted on the tenacity of human women.

Their doomsday weapon—the virus intended to attack the human reproductive system—had ultimately failed. Not solely because of Amber, though her genetic research did have a lot to do with the recovery of the human race, and would well into the future. No, it was their failure to really understand humans in the first place, that had been their downfall.

Amber’s research revealed their grave miscalculation. jit’suku, while closely resembling humans in many ways, actually defaulted to the male, genetically speaking. By contrast,
homo sapiens
generally defaulted to the female. The virus, which had mutated through the human population to eventually infect the jit’suku themselves, was designed to kill off all male humans—even those still in the womb.

It was a point of jit’suku honor that they did not make war upon women. But their bioweapon had been more deadly than they had ever realized, and it did kill some women, sickening and scarring many others with the result that they became infertile.

Humans were just different enough from the jits in the microscopic ways that counted, though the vast majority of human children born after the virus attack were female. With Amber’s help, and the few males who were immune or otherwise able to avoid becoming infected, a few male children were being born to perpetuate the species, but not enough to keep it viable. Which is where Amber’s sons had their purpose.

Designed in the lab from a myriad selection of donor DNA, Amber’s sons were totally immune to the jitvirus and its variants. They were also quite fertile and able to spread a new, resistant genetic code into the human population. With high intelligence, dominant alpha male traits, killer instincts and the skills to match, they were physical specimens. Truly super men, she believed.

Amber had carefully planned the first generation of her boys—gestated in incubators and taught under the auspices of the military who funded her program—so they would breed ninety-seven percent male offspring. Successive generations would equalize over time to the human norm of about fifty-fifty, but by her calculations, that would happen at a time well into the recovery of the species as a whole. They would have done their jobs by then, and future generations’ genetic distribution would normalize.

All as she had planned.

Not that she liked playing God. But sometimes a woman had to do what a woman had to do.

Thanks for reading
Angel in the Badlands
. If you enjoyed the story, please consider leaving a review. If you’re interested in more stories like this, check out the short story,
End of the Line
, or the novella
King of Swords
, which are both set in the same universe, about a century before the bioweapon’s release.

If you want more
Sons of Amber
stories, keep an eye on Bianca’s website at
WWW.BIANCADARC.COM
in the coming months for more information. Or you can sign up for
Bianca’s Newsletter
to be alerted when new books are released.

Jit’Suku Chronicles ~ Arcana

King of Swords, King of Cups & King of Clubs

King of Swords

David is a newly retired special ops soldier, looking to find his way in the unfamiliar civilian world. His first step is to visit an old friend, the owner of a bar called
The Rabbit Hole
on a distant space station. While there, he meets an intriguing woman who holds the keys to his future.

Adele has a special ability, handed down through her mother’s line. Adele can sometimes see the future. She doesn’t know exactly why she’s been drawn to the space station where her aunt deals cards in a bar that caters to station workers and ex-military. She only knows that she needs to be there. When she meets David, sparks of desire fly between them and she begins to suspect that he is part of the reason she traveled halfway across the galaxy.

Pirates gas the inhabitants of the station while Adele and David are safe inside a transport tube and it’s up to them to repel the invaders. But what good can one retired soldier and a civilian do against a ship full of alien pirates? Both will discover there’s more to each other than meets the eye as they do their best to overcome the alien threat and retake the station.