Seated at his office desk, Colliard Gaunis, former High Admiral of the United Galaxy Patrol, now a fugitive from the United Galaxy's new rulers, gazed across the room at a large, wall-mounted communication screen. The screen provided a view of the base's sickbay and the extent of the three-man medical team's efforts to keep their patient alive.

Gaunis's deeply lined face remained expressionless beneath his close-cropped cap of white hair, his gray eyes fixed on the portion of the comm screen that monitored the patient's condition. The readings moved ever closer to displaying the death Gaunis knew would come.

Moments later, the readings dropped to zero.

On the screen, Doctor Gen Behlyl, the lean, aristocratic-looking chief medical officer of Gaunis's secret Halycen base, shook his graying head at his two companions.

"We've lost them." Behlyl's cultured voice carried softly over the comm. He studied his patient's pale features, now serene in death, and then helped the two medics cover the body with a thin sheet. "I'll call the High Admiral and let him know what's happened."

Behlyl crossed the room to the sickbay's communication unit and switched on the screen at his end of the link.

"You saw what happened, sir?"

"I saw." Gaunis kept his tone as detached as his expression, but inside, he pondered all that had occurred.

Four successful fertilizations, four perfect pregnancies, and four th'Maran females and their human-th'Maran twins—always twins—lost in the past year. And not one successful attempt to impregnate a human woman with th'Maran seed.

There would be no more attempts, he decided, of either kind.

"We did what we could to save her," Behlyl's voice came over the comm without a hint of defensiveness, "but it was just like with the others. The wom— The female was determined to die and take her unborn children with her. I'll perform an autopsy and send you the results promptly."

"That won't be necessary, Doctor," Gaunis said. "We both know what you'll find. As you said, the female was willing to die rather than let me have the children. We will not try again."

Behlyl paused for a moment, and then nodded. "Very well, sir. What would you like me to do with the rest of the th'Maran?"

Gaunis thought of the specimens he still held alive, the last of the th'Maran his field operatives had captured. His people in the field acted as Gaunis's eyes and ears, his way of keeping abreast of happenings across worlds he once controlled, and would control again, with or without the aid of the half-human, half-th'Maran children rumor suggested would be so powerful—the next step in human evolution.

No one knew the full extent of the half-breeds' abilities, or if they would possess any special gifts at all, but Gaunis could not afford to ignore the potential they represented. His enemies would have access to any abilities the children possessed; therefore, he preferred to make his move with one or more of them at his side. However, as months of repeated failures had shown him, forced breeding would not get him one of the children. But another way to attain one had come to light, a method that did not require his continued tolerance of a group of the hated th'Maran creatures on his base.

"Kill them," he said in answer to Behlyl's question. "Except Tenu's female, of course. We'll need her a while longer." He cut the circuit and returned his attention to his desk's inlaid computer screen.

Several minutes later, his office door opened. He glanced up from his work.

A slender woman stepped through the opening, every curve of her splendid form displayed by the iridescent white bodysuit she wore, her white-gold hair caught up in an intricate web of interwoven braids. She crossed the office and moved around the desk to Gaunis's side.

Renee Andren, former Patrol area commander, now a renegade like himself, was one of the few people Gaunis chose to share his exile. Initially, his interest in the woman had centered around her ability to aid him against the admirals who threatened his control of the United Galaxy through their dealings with the Patrol's adversary, the Confederacy. She soon showed him she could make herself useful in other ways, both as a soldier and as a woman. In exchange for her assistance, Gaunis offered her a position as the United Galaxy's first female admiral if they won the war against the Confederacy, or a chance to escape with him in the unlikely event the Patrol should lose.

But the Patrol did lose, and Renee provided the means for the two of them to escape capture by the Confederacy and flee to the planet Halycen after their defeat at the Battle of Terra. In the months they had spent on the Halycen base, her usefulness as a soldier waned as Gaunis worked on far-ranging plans she did not possess the patience or depth of understanding necessary to comprehend. But her usefulness as a woman had not declined. He looked up at her.

Violet eyes set in delicate, bronzed features met his gaze.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I hear you lost the th'Maran woman," she said. "What went wrong?"

Gaunis leaned back in his chair. "Nothing went wrong. It was the same as with the others. As soon as the fetuses began to show signs of higher brain activity, the female tapped into the power to destroy herself and the children."

"Will you try again?"

"Not like that, I won't. I may be stubborn, Renee, but I'm not stupid. I'll not get a human-th'Maran child by breeding one."

The woman arched an eyebrow. "You have another plan, then?"

Gaunis felt a hint of irritation. He drew a long breath. "I have many plans, Renee. You know that better than anyone."

She continued to watch him, a tolerant smile on her lips, then leaned back against his desk. "You have something in the works. I know that look, Colliard, I've seen it on you plenty of times."

"I've received several reports indicating there is a set of human-th'Maran twins on the Arecian base."

"Twins again?" Renee said. "Do you think it was planned that way?"

Gaunis considered that. He had read several versions of the story behind the creation of the human-th'Maran race, but they all told the same basic tale. A race of ancient ethereal beings called the Om-Mar directed the evolution of the various human species across dozens of planets, and then used select human stock to create the th'Maran. The Om-Mar then planned to breed the physically strong humans to the mentally adept th'Maran, and use their offsprings' powerful blend of abilities for themselves by joining with them, body and mind.

But something went wrong—the stories disagreed as to what. The Om-Mar abandoned their plan and released the humans, the th'Maran, and their children to their own destinies. And then the Om-Mar went away, or disappeared, or died, depending on which version of the story you chose to believe. Gaunis did not know whether he believed any of them, but the fate of the Om-Mar and the reasons behind the children's existence interested him far less than the children themselves.

His thoughts switched to the more tangible scientific facts behind th'Maran biology, facts learned through Doctor Behlyl's work with the th'Maran in Gaunis's breeding program, as well as garnered from Confederate research results sent to Halycen by Gaunis's field operatives.

The information fascinated Gaunis, and it explained not only the twins, but the difficulty Behlyl encountered getting any viable pregnancies started in the first place.

According to the research and collected information, th'Maran possessed thirty-seven chromosome pairs, compared to a normal human's twenty-three. Extra chromosome pairs were not unheard of; genome cataloging projects on dozens of worlds had discovered individuals, as well as entire families, who carried one or more extra pairs. They were particularly prevalent among the Nepurhans and Ilekians, the two human races that had evolved psi abilities independent of the th'Maran. The extra chromosome pairs were almost always carried by females and passed on through self-replication of any unpaired chromosomes after fertilization. However, in no instance had more than five extra pairs been found in normal humans.

Yet the th'Maran difference went far beyond the extra fourteen pairs of chromosomes. All th'Maran—males and females alike—carried the extra pairs, but only the females could create matches for them, which explained why a human female could not get pregnant by a th'Maran. Something in the extra fourteen pairs proved essential for a successful fertilization; a normal human woman's inability to provide a match for the half set of chromosomes provided by the th'Maran male prevented the creation of a viable embryo.

Many th'Maran females also carried a structure within their ova that acted as a sort of chromosome review board. After fertilization, the structure ran each of the chromosome pairs through a series of intricate chemical checks, the details of which researchers were still studying. If the structure found anything amiss with the pair, it would self-destruct and destroy the fertilized egg.

If the structure found nothing wrong with the chromosomes and a full set of thirty-seven pairs existed, it would shut down and allow the pregnancy to progress normally. If it found no problems and no matches for the final fourteen chromosomes, the structure would trigger an automatic pairing process on the extra chromosomes, and then cause a complete division of the fertilized egg, resulting in identical twins for every human-th'Maran breeding.

"The twin births were definitely planned," he said in answer to Renee's question. "And I can only look on it as an advantage, giving us access to twice the number of children we would otherwise have, beginning with the two on Arecia."

"How do you plan to get them off the Confederacy's main base?" she asked.

"I don't plan to do any such thing, but I'm in contact with someone on Arecia who may be able to."

"I thought you lost your Arecian operatives after the war."

"You mean Atkins and Lehrton?" Gaunis asked. "Yes, I lost them, but there was a third agent working with them for a time, an independent named Devin Tyler. Lehrton reported Tyler left Arecia, but apparently he was misinformed. Tyler's been trapped on Arecia with a Confederate bounty on his head since the end of the war, and he's very eager to leave. Eager enough to risk stealing the children to pay his way off-planet."

"Can he do it?"

"I believe he can. He's spent most of his time on Arecia devising a workable plan, and I'm willing to do what I can to help him carry it out."

Renee nodded, her expression thoughtful, and then a worried look crossed her features. "What if he's captured? How much can he tell the Confederates about us?"

"Only that I'm alive, something I'm sure they deduced months ago, and that I'm interested in getting a human-th'Maran child, which they've known even longer. Tyler knows nothing of Halycen, and even if he did, it's not worth worrying about. The Confederates have enough information to find me if they really want to. Having the children here might help us when they do. I doubt they'd launch an all-out attack if they knew we had the children with us."

"What if Tyler can't get the children?"

Gaunis shrugged. "Then I've lost nothing. None of my plans depend on them. And the Confederates are going to have a difficult time using the ones they have against us. My men in the field have been encouraging rumors about the dangers inherent in the children's abilities. The Confederates are going to have their hands full simply keeping the children safe from a terrified populace."

Renee shook her head, a look of wonder on her face. "Colliard, you never fail to amaze me."

He gave a wry, unfelt smile. "For both of our sakes, let us hope I never do."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.