“We do this because you’re inferior to us,” Enki said. “You are so inferior that you slaughtered your own fifty years ago. That we slaughter the final remnants should be a small matter to you.”

  “He murdered them,” Ningal said, pointing at Rim-Sin lying unconscious on the floor.

  “He did,” Enki agreed. “But no one tried to stop him. No one among you resisted the rise of the Valiants. That shows all of us that we are the ones who should continue. Your kind are castoffs, vessels that produced us. Now, however, your utility as a race is over.”

  Ningal had been standing. She now collapsed upon a chair. Was this really happening?

  “Don’t fret, Ningal. I will sire sons and possibly daughters from you. As long as you can find favor in my eyes, you will be mine and will live in style.”

  “But…but you’re all going to die,” Ningal said. “Don’t you understand that Rim-Sin has infected all of you with an incurable disease?”

  “I am all too aware of that,” Enki said. “That is why Rim-Sin and I are going to have a long and serious talk about it. Look at him. You once said that he had balls.”

  Ningal frowned. The Chief Marshal’s words almost sounded like gibberish. She had trouble comprehending them.

  “I have studied the records,” Enki was saying. “I know about those sayings. Well, Rim-Sin will not have those balls much longer. If we let any of the old-style men survive, we will castrate them first. Their day is done.”

  “What you are saying is grossly barbaric,” Ningal said with hardly any breath.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Enki said. “Yet, it is the way of life. The Vims follow us, seeking our destruction. Rim-Sin realized the old People could not survive the predatory aliens. Thus, he restructured the race. The Valiants now are the People. We are the ones who shall proceed into the future. We are the ones who will give life to our race. We are new and improved. We are an advance, an evolutionary progression.”

  “But this wasn’t evolutionary,” Ningal said. “We were the ones who created you through genetic manipulation.”

  Enki shrugged his massive shoulders. “Call it planned evolutionary progression if you desire. But enough of this. You and I shall have many times to talk. I admire your intelligence, Ningal. It cannot compare to my own, of course that is true. Even the great Rim-Sin is my mental inferior. He certainly is my physical inferior, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Ningal nodded.

  Enki sighed. “The old ways have ended. The new have begun. We planted a bug on you when you met with me. The sub-force-leader did that. By returning here, you helped us overcome the fail-safes that guarded this section of the ship. I knew this weakling wouldn’t face me in my conference chamber. Therefore, I had to come here. Now we are going to restructure everything.”

  Ningal was staring at Enki. She didn’t know what to do or to say. “Will you really take the Akkad through the nebula?”

  “Eh?” Enki asked. “Can you doubt it? That is the bold maneuver. I doubt the missiles are structured to withstand such debris. They will follow, and be destroyed. Then we will be free of them, and free to decide our fate.”

  “Do you believe this a foregone conclusion?” Ningal asked.

  “Nothing is foregone,” Enki said. “One must take action. One must strike—as I and the other Valiants have done this day.” He looked at Rim-Sin lying unconscious on the floor. “We will have a talk, Rim-Sin and me, one I’ve long envisioned.”

  “He’ll never agree to do what you want,” Ningal said. “He’s mad.”

  Enki snorted. “I know all about his vaunted madness. It will not resist the pain and indignities I’ll heap upon him. Believe me. I shall break him unless he comes to his senses.” Enki smiled harshly. “I may even allow you to help me break him. If that is what you want.”

  A part of Ningal was interested. Then she recoiled. Could she heap one indignity after another on her husband? No. She did not want to be that person. She’d treated her first husband shabbily. She would at least dignify Rim-Sin with a modicum of loyalty. The idea surprised her.

  That was when Ningal began to wonder if she could reverse this.

  How, though? The Valiants were killing all the old-style men. They wanted the women. Ningal realized what a grave mistake, what a vast pressure Rim-Sin had put on the Valiants by not giving them females. He’d believed the portals and pornography would allow the Valiants their sexual release. No. Rim-Sin the mad genius hadn’t gauged the lack of females on the Valiants correctly. Now Rim-Sin was going to lose everything sooner than he’d expected.

  “You win this round,” Ningal said.

  “I will win all the rounds,” Chief Marshal Enki said. “Can you doubt that?”

  Ningal could neither doubt nor believe anything now. Her world was crashing around her. She was going to be a mistress, a consort, to this brute.

  Ningal shivered. There was no delight in the idea. Enki was masterful, manly, and powerful. Yet, Ningal had changed significantly from the young woman who left her first husband for Rim-Sin.

  She stared at Rim-Sin on the floor. An age was ending and a new one beginning. What was going to happen in the ensuing days? Could the Valiants survive the voyage and then the Vims? The old People had failed. Now it was time to see if the new ones could beat the horrible odds of interstellar war.

  -20-

  The next few months were bitter and upsetting to Ningal. She witnessed some of what the Valiants did to Rim-Sin, although she only heard about the castration. Afterward, the Valiants put him to work.

  Rim-Sin was a wreck compared to what he had been, broken by the harsh methods of the Valiants. He gave the soldiers the antidote to the disease, one that worked. Rim-Sin then helped in creating female Valiants.

  Ningal went back to watching gestation cylinders for the development of female Valiants, the first batch that were not unceremoniously flushed away. In the evenings, she reported to the Chief Marshal. Often, he would lie with her. He told her many of his plans then. He was bold, aggressive, and far more intelligent than she’d realized. If Rim-Sin was a genius, the Chief Marshal was twice that.

  During that time, Valiant engineers strengthened the magnetic scoop as the Akkad veered toward the nebula. The countdown to reaching it started, and the day fast approached.

  At Ningal’s request, Enki allowed her onto the bridge just before they entered the nebula.

  All the while, the Akkad continued to accelerate. At the same time, the scoop swept up more particles than before as they flew through the outlying regions of the nebula. Then the ship plunged into the nebula proper. The improved magnetic scoop immediately came under assault as a vast amount of interstellar particles poured into the propellant storage tanks.

  The Akkad traveled at sixteen percent light speed. The increased velocity was due to the technical skills of the original batch of Valiants. They’d made improvements to the engines so they burned hotter, eking out more thrust.

  The Akkad used all that as it plowed through the nebula.

  Years behind the generational vessel, the Annihilator missiles followed. The reason for this increase in distance between them was the thirty-year head start the Akkad had on the missiles. The Akkad had accelerated to a much higher percent of light speed compared to the missiles, as it took an agonizingly long time for all vessels to do this.

  There was another factor involved. The crew hypothesized that the Vim missiles likely lacked a magnetic scoop. The teleoptic officers aboard the Akkad hadn’t detected a scoop in any case—not that they could easily do so at this distance. That meant the missiles only had their original store of propellant. While the antimatter engines likely hurled that propellant harder than the Akkad’s fusion engines did theirs, the missiles couldn’t accelerate for as long because they’d run out of propellant. There was another factor in this. The Vim missiles would never have to decelerate, so they didn’t need to save any propellant for that.

  What that all meant was the several “days” in light-year terms head start the Akkad had possessed in the beginning over the missiles, had now stretched to light years in distance.

  That meant the teleoptic operators would not see how the missiles reacted to this maneuver for years. That was the extreme limit that information could reach the Akkad about the missiles: the speed of light. Of course, the missile sensors would not see this change for just as many years.

  “We must assume the missiles will follow us into the nebula,” the Sensor Chief said.

  Chief Marshal Enki acknowledged the comment with a nod as he sat in the command chair. His size nearly exceeded the chair’s capacity. It had once easily fitted Ship Commander Anat. There was talk about constructing a new chair made to Valiant size.

  Ningal stood near Enki and stared out of the grand viewing port. She was astounded at the brilliance and sheer breadth of space, at all the stars out there. She’d been born on the Akkad. Likely, she would die on it. The ship would travel for hundreds of years more. Where would they land? Much would depend on the success or failure of the nebula ploy.

  During the next few weeks as the ship smashed through the nebula, there were emergencies galore, testament to the danger of the maneuver. The ship shuddered under particle assaults, those that unexplainably slipped through or past the magnetic scoop. Repair teams dashed here and ran there, fixing every breach and problem. Even so, the Akkad continued to plow through the densest part of the nebula, mostly protected by the magnetic scoop. Because of that, ever more propellant poured into the storage tanks, those that had grown perilously empty. This would ensure that they had the needed propellant to decelerate when the time came.

  That time was far in the future, as the ship still accelerated. Enki had spoken before of the hope of reaching twenty percent light speed before they began deceleration. Such incredible velocity allowed the ship to cross the great void between the stars in this relatively short time, short in interstellar terms, not in the span of normal lives.

  The vastness of this galaxy alone awed Ningal as she stood on the bridge, considering her third husband. There hadn’t been any marriage ceremony, but she wasn’t passed from Valiant to Valiant as other old-style females were. That made her a common-law wife, if nothing else.

  Ningal shivered despite her space-induced awe. This was a barbaric and evil time aboard the Akkad as the Valiants reveled in finally having females to enjoy. No longer did they merely enter the portals and indulge themselves in pornographic fantasies. This was real life. The practice of it had produced a riotous atmosphere aboard ship.

  Ningal had spoken to Enki about this during their bedroom talks.

  The Chief Marshal recognized the problem, and he’d explained it to her thusly: “The soldiers need to bleed off the sexual tension that has been building in them for fifty years. Do you finally understand the horrors that Rim-Sin unwittingly unleashed upon the Valiants? It will take time to drain off this tension, as the soldiers have been brought to a maximum pitch of frustration. Fortunately, the riotous atmosphere you speak about is helping to lessen the tension.”

  “Maybe,” Ningal said, “but you’re degrading the women by allowing this.”

  Enki shrugged. “I have not degraded you. You are mine and mine alone. I have elevated you by this and also shown that I have greater authority than any other.”

  Ningal had stared at him.

  “By keeping you for myself alone,” Enki said, hammering the point home, “I increase my prestige as well as heightening yours. Can you understand the honor I do you?”

  “Yes,” Ningal said, though she shuddered inwardly at his arrogance, at his presumption, at his grim power that he wielded with such ease. He was so different from Rim-Sin. Rim-Sin had been like a spider, moving in the background, pulling this lever, leaving that web, doing things in hidden recesses. The Chief Marshal acted boldly, uttering commands in public and putting his body in harm’s way if needed. He did that to break up a protest. Enki had slain five Valiants because they’d resisted a command. The Chief Marshal was almost a pirate lord as much as he was a military commander of the generational vessel that would save their People.

  The Valiants were not the People Ningal had known before. The Valiants struck her as a caricature of what some of the young men used to imagine they were. Now, it was no longer a caricature. These soldiers needed an iron hand to control them. Yet, perhaps Enki was correct in one thing. The sexual tension Rim-Sin had brought by failing to give the soldiers women had brought about this horrible time.

  As Ningal contemplated these things, the Akkad continued to smash through the nebula, creating an easily followed path. During this time, several fusion engines came near to collapse. One of the magnetic scoop generators blew, causing an emergency. It was a frightening time. Then the ship began to shake under the strain of the magnetic scoop that threatened to fail hour after hour, day after day.

  Ningal watched from the bridge during the ship day. At times, she studied the impassive features of her third husband as he sat on the command chair, willing the ship to succeed. Rim-Sin had believed in will power, but not like the Chief Marshal. It was a force one could feel emanating from him. Ningal didn’t need to look into the Chief Marshal’s eyes to feel the force of will. His presence brought it. In this, Enki was different from the other Valiants. He possessed something grander, maybe even noble.

  One day, as the Akkad continued its nebula-smashing journey—

  “Sir,” a bridge officer said, turning to face Enki. “The mass of interstellar debris is thinning out. I think we may be reaching the other edge of the nebula.”

  There was the barest of nods from the Chief Marshal. His eyes seemed to burn, not with fury, but with a contemplation of something.

  Ningal shrank back as she saw that.

  Enki smiled faintly. Then all joy from his countenance fled as he watched their progress.

  Abruptly, the Akkad was through the nebula. There was no more debris blocking the view of the stars. Almost instantly, the ship ceased shaking. Four frightening weeks had passed, but they had made it. They were on the other side of the nebula.

  “Sir,” a different officer said. He reported that the propellant storage tanks were eighty-four percent filled.

  Forgetting herself, Ningal spoke. “How long until we know if the Vim missiles have made it through the nebula?”

  Enki turned to her. “What?” he asked loudly.

  Ningal repeated the question.

  Enki turned to a different officer.

  “Sir,” the officer said, “we should know in a little less than ten years.”

  The Akkad was a little less than five light years ahead of the missiles. That meant in approximately five years, the missiles would make it through the nebula or fail to make it through. However, since the generational vessel would already be five light years away from the nebula, it would take that much time for the information to reach the ship.

  Enki pointed at Ningal. “There’s your answer. The missiles won’t reach the nebula for five years. We have twice that time to decide where we’re going to land and how far we’re going to deviate and in what manner from our original quest. As a possible point of interested, the AIs aboard the missiles will not be able to see us until they’re through the nebula.”

  Enki stood abruptly after saying that. “Come,” he told Ningal, holding out his right hand to her. “I want to lay with you. It’s time I gave you a child.”

  -21-

  31.58 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH

  166 YEARS AGO

  In ten years, things drastically changed aboard the Akkad. One of the biggest changes was that female Valiant fetuses had “birthed” into babies, the babies into girls, and the girls were now growing into their preteen years. Soon, they would begin adolescence and then become ripe young women ready for marriage or concubine status.

  Unfortunately, many Valiant soldiers didn’t want to wait that long. They’d waited too damn long as it was. This naturally created tension had led to numerous duels over the limited number of aging, old-style females.

  Too many of those females had committed suicide rather than continue being passed from soldier to soldier.

  After far too long of a time under this explosive situation, Chief Marshal Enki had enacted a Ship Law: Valiants must defend their women or lose them. Only duels that drew blood could bring about an exchange.

  That caused much resentment and fighting aboard the Akkad. Fortunately, dueling customs had solidified over time. Then Enki enacted another law. A Valiant could only hold one woman at a time, not try to build himself a harem.

  All this meant that the most powerful Valiants held onto their women, and they trained hard to maintain their strength and speed. Others trained just as hard to gain greater strength, speed and dueling skills.

  This resulted in a rigidly enforced hierarchy, maintained through duels. Those duels were primarily with knives or half swords.

  “The duels help keep everyone preoccupied,” Enki told Ningal one night. She’d been complaining how the women were merely the prizes for duels.

  On a different front, after endless attempts on their part, Ningal was two-months pregnant. That had taken far longer than she’d expected. It appeared that Valiant DNA contained just enough differences to make conception difficult with an old-style woman. There had been far too few births these past ten years, especially given the amount of sexual activity taking place.

  The duels had lessened the past few weeks as a different kind of tension grew aboard the ship. Soon, the teleoptic officers would know if the Vim missiles had breached the nebula five light years behind the Akkad or if they’d failed to do so. The missiles’ absence would indicate failure or that they had veered off course.

  Ningal asked for permission to come onto the bridge for this.

  In a fit of generosity, perhaps for her pregnancy, Enki granted it.

  Ningal came with him today, trailing him by a few steps. She touched her stomach from time to time, indicating the pregnancy.

  Many a Valiant nodded or doffed his hat to her as she passed. That was so strange. The old-style women were commodities, sex toys, and maybe even chattel. Yet, the Valiant girls were too young yet to bear babies. No one knew if the Valiant females would prove fertile or not. Workers in the gene labs still brought fetuses to term, introducing more girl babies onto the ship.