CHAPTER TWO: DANOVAN tel’DARIAN

I hadn’t seen her come into the room, Lucille Ward. I couldn’t see anyone or anything, except for Ara. Even as she stood just behind me, I focused on her in my periphery, or felt her as she gripped the sleeve of my shirt. She was my entire universe, burned down to a point; she carried within her the entirety of my future happiness. She was pregnant; and the baby was mine.

A part of me is ashamed of the sizable portion of my mind that put everything else aside in the wake of Dr. Chen’s inadvertent revelation. A baby. A baby. Our baby.

But Lucille had a presence to be reckoned with, and I was flesh and blood, living and breathing, and just as susceptible as the next man to a true stunner. Araceli was beautiful, like a Botticelli cherub with skin like moth wings and hair like copper. But Lucille Ward had something other than beauty, something, perhaps, better than beauty. She had gravitas. She had command. She had that certain something that meant it was impossible to deny her once she’d walked into a room.

Her skin was the color of cocoa powder, and her eyes were swirling green emeralds encircled by a halo thick lashes. Her hair, a cascade of loose black curls, was pinned at her temples but otherwise left to languish like a tumble of water down her spine. It was a youthful choice for someone whose mouth was parenthesized by smile lines, and whose eyes crinkled in the corners from years of smiling. But these were the only giveaways as to her age: she was incredibly well preserved. And why shouldn’t she be? She was among the wealthiest women in the galaxy, and her money could buy her cosmetic time, if it couldn’t buy her the real thing.

“We need to figure out what we’re going to do with you,” she was saying to Ara, who was looking rather startled at the woman’s sudden presence.

“What do you mean, do with me?” Araceli asked, venturing a tentative step toward the woman who was plucking a pair of elbow-length gloves from her hands and hoisting them into the arms of one of her assistants. She was accompanied by three others, in total: her assistant, a blond bespectacled mouse-like creature with dishwater hair and pasty skin; a tall, hulking man with a shaved head, wearing a suit and sunglasses; and an effeminate gentleman, who was long, and tall, and lanky, in loafers and a sweater vest. They didn’t really seem like they’d be participating in the conversation, they mostly seemed like they were there to bolster their mistress’ presence and make her seem even more intimidating than she actually was. Or maybe they thought she wasn’t safe with us. Good call: she wasn’t. But it was her son who was weaving the pistol around like a lunatic.

“You’re a great disappointment to me, Araceli,” Lucille went on, eying Ara through that thick forest of black lashes. “I thought you would be a fantastic face for GenOriens, at my son’s side. I thought the two of you looked just so lovely together, so…young and pretty. And as an added bonus, I thought you were smart.”

Ara blinked, and I could feel her bristling. Lucille, for her part, just gave a low, baleful chuckle. “Oh, come now, dear,” she continued, stepping further into the med tent. “By now you must have determined that the attacks staged against the Leviathan, the GenOriens base, the villages…you must know by now that they could not have happened if someone on the inside had not orchestrated them.”

“The attack on the Leviathan,” Christian stammered, his weapon freezing in midair where he held it, “that was you?”

“Oh, Christian, not you, too,” Lucille said, rubbing at her temple with a delicate finger as though her son’s idiocy had given her a migraine.

“How could you—”

But she didn’t give her son the chance to continue. “Give me the gun, Christian,” she said, her voice stern as though she were commanding him to go to his room. He did not obey, and I saw fire spark in her eyes.

“No,” he said levelly, “I want some answers first.”

“Yes, I’m sure you all do. But standing around like this is making me nervous. So, Harris, if you wouldn’t mind.” On cue, the hulking bald man came forward and took three long strides toward me before he trained a gun at my head. I held my hands up instinctively, very much not wanting a bullet in my brain.

“Shall we all adjourn to the Carpathian, then? The gravity on this planet,” Lucille gave a shake of her head as though she found it distasteful, like a cheap wine or a sour cheese. “It’s just awful, don’t you think?”

Christian, who had been staunchly on his own side, decided to assist his mother in getting us where he wanted us to go by wrapping his fingers around Araceli’s arm and pressing the gun to the side of her head. I gritted my teeth, having to physically restrain myself from saying something that could very well have gotten us both shot.

“Don’t try nothin’ now, boy,” hulking Harris growled into my ear, before tapping the nose of the pistol to it to urge me forward. I, begrudgingly, obliged.

~ * ~

We were ushered onto a shuttle which shot at top speed into orbit to join its mother, The Carpathian. I couldn’t see the ship, but I had heard of her in the past. She’d been something of an interstellar shuttle, taking long, languorous trips from Earth to Galatea and back again. More of a pleasure cruiser than anything else. But we weren’t invited to the upper decks: we were relegated to the belly of the beast.

Harris kindly escorted us to our seats, our wrists bound in front of us. Christian stood idling by the door, rubbing at his chin with the muzzle of his gun. Lucille and her assistants brought up the rear, and the Mouse closed the door behind us.

“Thank you both for joining me aboard the Carpathian,” Lucille said, as though she’d extended a gilded invitation. “I’m feeling much more comfortable already. Can I get you two anything?” She glanced between us; all we offered her in return was stony silence. “Very well. Timothy, please fetch me a sparkling water.” The lanky boy turned on his heel to do his mistress’ bidding.

“Mother, I want to know—”

“All in good time, dear boy,” Lucille said, turning to lift a hand to his face. She rubbed his cheek, then dropped her hand, before she moved to sit on the corner of the table in front of us. The room was sparse: metal tables and chairs, windows with the shades drawn at the front and back of the space, fluorescent overhead lighting that buzzed and flickered, giving the room an ominous quality.

“Let’s begin at the beginning,” Lucille said, “as I imagine you have questions that need answering.” I looked over at Ara, but she had her eyes trained on Lucille. She was trembling, from cold, form adrenaline, from terror. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and keep her safe. I strained my wrists against my bonds, testing them. They were zip tied.

“Yes,” Lucille began, “I chose you for Christian. When I stepped down from GenOriens, I was well aware that my son had rather a…playboy, devil-may-care reputation, and I needed the board to approve him taking over my role as CEO of the organization. I promised them that within two years, he would become engaged, married in three, and I presented them a list of vetted options from within the GenOriens ranks. You, Araceli Cross, were our very first choice. Then, it was just a matter of putting you in the right place at the right time, ensuring that your paths crossed, building in leisure time in your otherwise ridiculously busy schedules. And my son is handsome, isn’t it? And charming. And you were Cinderella at the ball.”

I turned to look at Ara, and saw her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She cast her gaze down to the floor and pursed her lips. Lanky Timothy slipped back into the room with a tray that carried a bottle of Perrier, a bucket of ice, and a tall glass garnished with a wedge of lime. He poured it for her and placed the glass in her hand.

“And he did love you, eventually, I think,” Lucille continued, sipping delicately from her glass.

“Yes,” Christian interjected, “I did. Ara—” He took a step toward her, and she ventured to look up at him. “I did love you—I…do love you.” But his words were met with silence.

“Then, as to the matter of your Nova Genus project, Dr. Cross, that was an internal sabotage orchestrated by The Cleansing.” Ara jerked her head up to look at Lucille, and Lucille’s red, red lips broke into an almost obscene smile. “Ah, you have heard of them.”

“Only just recently,” Ara confirmed, her voice monotone. “They were the ones rounding up the mothers of the hybrids.”

“Just so.”

“But why?” Ara demanded.

“Why else?” Lucille echoed, crossing her arms in front of her. “Money, my dear. Lots and lots of money.”

Ara furrowed her brow, and Christian downright rolled his eyes. Me, I wasn’t surprised. She seemed to fit the super villain role pretty well, and given the quality of her attire, I had assumed there was something monetary to be gained by her depravity.

“Oh, don’t look at me that way, Christian Ward,” She hissed at her son, who averted his eyes. “I didn’t do it for my own personal gain, though by your expressions, that’s clearly what you think—no. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to run a corporation like GenOriens? Trillion—upon trillions of dollars, in and out, each year. And do you know what the primary focus is? Hm?” She glanced between us. “Any guesses?”

Ara and I were on the same page about being disinterested in playing her game—we just wanted answers. So I set my jaw and stared her down. “Vaccinations,” she said, “medicines and medical devices. We eradicated cancer. There were a large number of pharmaceutical companies that had it out for us after we did that, did you know? And they stopped developing our drugs, so we had to start doing it ourselves.”

Lucille rose from her perch on the edge of the table and moved to stand directly in front of Araceli. She hooked a finger beneath her chin and forced her head up, dared her to meet her gaze. And she did. “I’m in the business of saving lives, darling. Human lives. That’s what I do. So go ahead and paint me as the bad guy, but you’ve got me all wrong. I did this, all of this, for the greater good.”

“If you care so little for the Galateans,” Ara asked, “then why did you fund my program? Why did you bring my team here, if your plan was simply to slaughter us?”

“I needed a reason to get planetside that wouldn’t draw too much attention. We came here for the Quaridium Drollide. That’s what we were after.” Lover’s Gold. Of course. “And we’re a scientific corporation, with a focus on medical developments. Breeding seemed the logical cover, despite the controversy that surrounds it.”

“But…the attack on Hiropass. Rounding up the mothers of the hybrids…”

“Out of my hands, I’m afraid,” Lucille said to Ara. “I enlisted the assistance of the Cleansing, since I didn’t actually want the program to succeed, and needed to obliterate all traces of it. But I admit they got a little…out of hand.”

“Out of hand?” I spat. “They murdered my mother.”

“Apologies, darling,” Lucille said to me, and circled me like a bird of prey. “It was never my intention for innocent lives to be lost.”

“What do you call the life of a child, if not innocent?” Ara demanded.

“Dr. Cross, you’re a scientist,” Lucille said. “Certainly you’re aware of what a valuable resource the corpse of a once-living hybrid is for our research.”

“So, you’ll study them, dissect them like…like aliens, and, what, keep it off the books?”

“Darling, they are aliens.”

“No,” Ara protested, “not here. Here, we are the aliens.”

Lucille grinned again, showing us her white, white canines. “Quite right,” she conceded. Lucille laced her fingers together and glanced between us. “So,” she went on, “obviously, I can’t have my son marry some…some harlot carrying a hybrid baby, so we’ll have to do something about your situation.”

“My…situation?” Ara looked desperately over at me, and I locked my eyes on her, guessing Lucille Ward’s meaning before she had to articulate it.

“We’re not going to kill you, if that’s what you think. No, you’re too brilliant a mind. If you make the right decisions here, in this room, I can get the program of your choosing up and running in no time at all.”

“In exchange for what?”

“The termination of the pregnancy, or, better still, the donation of the fetus to medical research.” I watched all the blood drain out of Araceli’s face, and I couldn’t help it: I rose to my feet and advanced on Lucille. In an instant, I had her delicate throat in my fist. And I squeezed.

But Harris, for such a large man, had catlike reflexes, and he’d fired on me before I could snap Lucille’s neck. He’d set his pistol to stun, and I dropped like a stone to the floor, convulsing as the surge of electricity wracked through my body. I tensed like a spring wire, my jaw locking shut until everything went black.