Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One by Anna Erishkigal Read Free Book Online Page B

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