The Chosen One

Chapter 8-2

"What are we? Animals you breed for slaughter?"

A blue jolt of electricity lit up that section of the chamber as the Electrophori's deadly tail sparked with fanatical indignation. The delegates on either side of the eel hissed at him in disapproval. Several delegates whispered ‘hypocrite' just loud enough to be picked up by the cameras.

Lucifer slammed his fist down upon the railing. "Even Shay’tan doesn’t do that to his own citizens!"

He whirled to face the cameras.

"And now…" Lucifer's voice choked up as a lump rose into his throat. "Now, the moment a hybrid baby is born, before his umbilical cord is even cut, a representative from the Emperor’s youth training academy is there to whisk him away from his mother, whether or not she agrees."

Tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Babies. We indoctrinate babies less than a minute old to defend you because we can't afford to have their parents take a few years off to raise their offspring."

His white wings drooped, trembling with emotion. He turned, eyes shut, away from the cameras and tried to quell the raw emotion which threatened to overtake him. The hall was so quiet you could have heard a pin-feather drop. He coughed and rubbed his cheek, determined not to let them see him weep. His legislative aide rushed out with a glass of water. Lucifer gulped down the liquid and composed his features back into the mask of a professional politician.

"We give all these great speeches about free will—" Lucifer's voice sounded weary "—but from the moment a hybrid takes their first breath, we brainwash them into believing their only purpose is to die supporting the Emperor. And now we can't even give you that anymore, for our species has lost the ability to reproduce."

Total silence reigned in Parliament. A nervous cough broke the air. Lucifer made eye contact with key delegates from the old block that would otherwise oppose him and watched them squirm. Money. It all came down to money. He'd just laid out a moral justification the younger delegates could take back to their constituents and justify voting for the override. Now he needed to spell things out in terms the older delegates cared about.

"Only consider this question, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "If the hybrids die out and are no longer here to protect you, then who will? Who will protect the Alliance when all of the hybrids are gone?"

He let the question hang before them like a bad odor before reciting a famous Alliance slogan.

"As the hybrid races that defend us go, so shall the Alliance."

In the back of his subconscious, his inner voice whispered:

'Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.'

'Fear.'

'Just like a well-crafted television commercial.'

He could practically hear violins playing in the background as that small, sarcastic voice which had whispered to his subconscious for as long as he could remember whispered to ram this veto override through Parliament and overrule his immortal father's objections. It was time to end the stranglehold the eternal bickering between the two ascended emperor-gods had upon the citizens of both empires. It whispered to save his species. It whispered to save himself.

"Never-ending war is not the answer." Lucifer held out his hand. "I am here to offer a better way to achieve peace."

He lifted his wings from their dejected slump. His demeanor shifted from sorrowful repentant to television preacher peddling absolution to a circus-tent full of sinners. He'd pointed out the ugly reality. Now it was time to sell redemption.

"Over the past decade—" Lucifer's wings gave a hopeful flutter "—border skirmishes in certain sectors are down. The Sata'an Empire has left those sectors alone, not because we patrol them with warships, but because those planets trade with the Sata’an Empire."

Lucifer paced, looking each delegate in the eye. He was selling a solution to an ugly problem that nobody wanted to face. He was a contact team sports coach cheering on his team. He spoke quickly so the opposition wouldn't interrupt him.

"If the Alliance expanded this partnership, everyone would win. We win, the manufacturers win, and the Empire wins. Win-win-win. Everybody’s happy. Everybody’s rich. And nobody will go to war because their economies are too closely tied to risk upsetting the fruit cart."

The Spiderid who had interrupted him earlier heckled him from his balcony. "That’s the rhetoric Shay’tan gave the 51-Pegasi-4 colony! And look what it got them. Shay'tan slaughtered the whole planet!!! And the entire race of Seraphim Angelics along with it!"

Lucifer's white wings shuddered with anger and loss. The Seraphim… He hid the emotion behind the mask he had built to hide his true self from the world.

"That was 25 years ago." Lucifer spoke solemnly. "It was not Shay’tan’s doing. Hashem himself verified it was pirates acting on their own accord."

"So claims Shay’tan!!!" the Spiderid lord rebutted. "An eyewitness reported soldiers wearing Sata’anic uniforms invaded the planet. Not a disorganized band of pirates."

That small, sarcastic voice whispered into his mind:

'He is drunk with power at the thought of snatching the vote. You must treat him like the child he is…'

"So said one frightened 9-year-old boy!"

Lucifer turned his back on the Spiderid and appealed, instead, to the ancient races who were so close to genetic perfection that they identified more closely than any species with his father.

The Mu'aqqibat delegate hit his staff against the floor. Old money. Power. The block of ancient races immediately grew silent. The power brokers would not allow a silly upstart to steal the show. The ripple of silence which moved through the great assembly was unspoken, but it was complete. Lucifer had spelled out the tragedy in terms they cared about … money and power. They would allow him to finish his speech.

"Shay’tan is willing to give peaceful trading companies access to sell products his people need. All he asks in return is that we do the same." He paused to let his words sink in. "Fair is square."

The notion of fundamental fairness was one of the basic underpinnings of Alliance society.

That inner voice whispered:

'They don't -really- care about fairness. Spell it out in the only terms they'll understand. What it will cost them if they -don't- vote for this trade deal…'

"It's either that," Lucifer swept his wings upwards like a raptor swooping in for the kill and gestured towards the cameras as though he was the Devourer of Children, "or we need to figure out whose children we'll draft into the military to defend us. Because at the rate the hybrids are dying out, within ten years there won't be enough of us left to defend you anymore."

He pointed at the ancient races.

"It takes six naturally evolved humanoids to fill the shoes of a single hybrid, and those species all have voting rights. So compute those numbers when you figure out how much it will cost to reject Shay'tan's peace offering. It's trade agreements or the draft. Your choice."

Lucifer waited until the delegates who'd been blocking his trade proposal made eye contact. The Mu'aqqibat dragon took his staff and thumped it solidly upon the floor. He had won them over.

"I hereby make a motion for Parliament to expand the existing Free Trade agreement to all Alliance territories," Lucifer said. "I move said motion to an immediate vote…"

The young Spiderid lord leaped up.

"Shay’tan conquers newer sentient planets and conscripts their citizens to be his labor force so he can undersell us," the Spiderid shouted. "It's little more than slavery!"

That small sarcastic voice whispered:

'It's convenient how they call what Shay'tan does slavery, but overlook the 500 years of forced military service required of hybrids.'

"What Shay'tan does within the confines of his own empire is irrelevant," Lucifer said aloud. "We are ratifying a trade deal, not submitting to Sata'anic Rule."

The other delegates began to waffle. With his gift, Lucifer could hear the delegate's thoughts.

"I'm up for re-election."

"Unemployment is up to 17%."

"Why should I support him when his own father voted against him?"

Lucifer's wings drooped.

'You're losing them,' his inner voice whispered. 'Promise them something they can bring back to their constituents and say they did the right thing…'

Lucifer watched the energy in the room shift away from him. As much as he hated his own inner cynic, it was always right.

"It will give our besieged hybrid military a chance to replenish their ranks!" he shouted.

He could feel the moment the energy shifted back, but his victory rang hollow because death in battle was not the problem, but pure inability to reproduce. But fewer wasted lives would buy the hybrids time, and time was what he desperately sought.

The Spiderid lord shouted a losing challenge.

"If you open Alliance markets to unfettered trade, money will flow into Shay’tan’s coffers. He will use it to build up his military. Our industry will be decimated and our standard of living will be reduced to poverty."

"Oh, shut up!" several delegates hissed at him. "Do you think we want our kids to be Hashem's cannon fodder?"

"Shay’tan won’t have to defeat us in battle," the Spiderid shouted. "This resolution will allow him to simply bankrupt and buy us!"

Lucifer interrupted before things could get out of hand.

"We have a choice," Lucifer shouted. "Are we going to tell our hybrid soldiers we don't care if they go extinct so long as they continue to protect us while doing it? Or will we take charge of this situation and say NO MORE WAR!!!"

He swung his arms upward and gestured towards the cameras the way his immortal father did whenever he summoned lightening.

"Who wants to vote for peace?"

"Ay!!!" the delegates cheered.

"Any opposed?" the Speaker of the Commons asked.

"Nay!" The young Spiderid Lord's voice rang alone.

He was not the only delegate who opposed the measure, just the only one naive enough not to simply abstain.

"The Aye’s have it!" the Speaker of the Commons shouted, banging on his podium with his gavel. "The free trade agreement passes!"

Lucifer bowed, thanking the legislators as they filed out past him, including delegates who had concerns they wanted addressed. He could feel the positive energy flowing off of the crowd, making his head buzz with power. This was what his father had trained him to do from birth, creating the position of Prime Minister and putting him in charge of the day-to-day politics of running the Alliance. Lucifer snorted with disgust. Hashem wouldn't deign to muddy his godlike consciousness dealing with the lesser affairs of mortals!

The mouthy Spiderid pushed his way through the crowd.

"I need to speak to you!" he said.

That inner voice whispered:

'Get rid of him. If you don't, he'll keep raising his point until people listen.'

Lucifer feigned friendliness.

"What can I do for you?"

He honed his gift to listen to what wasn't being said beneath the young Spiderid's voice. Images leaped into his mind. Concerned constituents. Impoverished families.

Lucifer formed an image, and then clapped the young Lord on the back.

"Make an appointment with my Chief of Staff," Lucifer said. "We'll see what we can do about filing an addendum."

Power flowed through his voice, into the gullible young Spiderid Lord's mind.

'The Prime Minister is taking me seriously. If I work with him, he'll elevate me to a position of power.'

The young Spiderid Lord's palps spread wide in a pleased grin.

"Yes, Sir! I'll have a proposal on your desk tomorrow morning."

A dirty-winged Angelic appeared at his side. Average height, with dishwater blue eyes and unremarkable wings, everything about Chief of Staff Zepar communicated obsequiousness except for the cruel sneer which sometimes graced his lips.

"Sire?" Zepar said.

Lucifer stared at the doorway, eager to escape.

"If you'll excuse me," he said to the young Spiderid, "I'll let you and Zepar discuss the particulars."

He forced his way past the cameras, smiling and waving to the cheering throngs. As soon as he got into the chapel, he leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes.

'See? I told you we could do it.'

"Oh! Shut up," he whispered to the small, sarcastic voice. "All we need is time."

He stared up at the statue of the Eternal Emperor which stood behind the empty throne which was theoretically occupied whenever Parliament needed a tie-breaker, but in reality had only been occupied once in the last 225 years, two weeks ago when the Emperor had appeared to veto his earlier trade deal.

"Try and veto that, father," Lucifer said.

His words rang hollow. Trade deals weren't going to fix his species' problem. He needed his father to be a father and start caring about the workings of his empire.

His Angelic Chief of Staff followed him into the room. Zepar glanced nervously at the statue of the Eternal Emperor which overlooked them.

"Sire," Zepar asked. "Shall I ask the Party to cut off all funding to that little Spiderid pain in the ass before the next election?"

"Do it," Lucifer sighed. "And see what dirt you can dig up on him, even if you have to make it up. I want negative reports leaked to the media by nightfall."

"Yes, Sire," Zepar clasped his hands together. "Consider it done. Now … your next appointment is at 3:00 p.m. A cadet right out of the academy..."