Sneak Peek - The Last Angel: The Hungry Stars, Chapter 29 (Patreon)

Working on the second update for the month, so I figured I'd give you all a taste of what's to come. Hope you all enjoy this glimpse at a family reunion.

~

Grace started searching a row of her own. There were lots of children here. Some of them were asleep, others had been awoken by the intruders, their cries muffled by thick walls of the incubators. “Lydia...” she began. “What happened?”

Lydia paused, looking over the curved top of a tank at the lieutenant. “It’s not like you’re thinking,” she said. “I wasn’t held down while some sweaty fucker huffed and grunted. It was all very...” her voice hitched. “Clinical.” She let out a manic laugh. “They had the balls to ask me to donate after they shot me in the fucking back.” She swallowed.

“I guess they figured since they saved me from radiation poisoning, they were entitled to some of my genes and a few eggs now and then.” Her hands balled into fists. “I had to sleep at some point. I always woke up in the morning with an incision here or there or a bit sore. That’s how I knew, but that wasn’t enough for them.” She looked over at Grace. “You ever hear the expression ‘kill them with kindness’?”

“Yes.”

“After they finished digging through my brain and realized I wasn’t going to cooperate with their interrogations, that’s what they tried. There was still the...” she let out a breath. “The times you weren’t real, but that was them still trying to sell me on joining them. Carrot and stick, I guess. If I wouldn’t break one way, maybe something else would get me. So they’d... they’d show them to me. My kids. Ultrasounds, pictures of happy couples. ‘Look what you can have if you just stop fighting us’. The second-last one was a little girl. I didn’t give a shit at first. They weren’t mine, you get me?”

Grace nodded solemnly. “I think I do.” These were children conceived without Lydia’s knowledge or consent, the League taking bits of her to replenish their own gene pool. It was no wonder she hadn’t been swayed. She looked back down at the incubator.

LSJ/0324-3.78810.687

BC: 111-012-001

ID: 012-491-078(M)

Inside was a baby boy, his eyes closed and his hands squeezing the edge of a blanket. There was something just a little different about him from all the others. Like his mother wasn’t from here.

“Lydia,” she called. “Is this him?”

“That’s him,” the Marine said, pressing her hands and face against the tank. “That’s my little man. They were crueller than usual with him. They left him with me. At first I tried to ignore him, pretend he wasn’t there. Then he started crying.” She brushed away wetness. “I wanted him to shut up. He wasn’t mine, just something they plucked out of me and grew in a vat, that’s what I told myself. I wanted him to shut up so bad that I was willing to... I picked him up and I almost...” she let out a heavy breath. “I looked at him and I saw his eyes. They’re my eyes.” She straightened. “We’re not leaving without him.” She nodded at the next door. “There’s a storage chamber between the wards. It has support frames. You can slot the main part of the incubator right into them. They use them when they bring up the infants up from these levels to their parents.”

Grace took a step towards the doorway, when Echo signalled for her to stay where she was. “Lieutenant.”

The android had been listening to the conversation. She came over, looking at the medical log attached to the incubator. Her green eyes met Jameson’s. “Does this present a security risk?”