The Lawgivers: Gabriel Part 1

The Lawgivers: Gabriel.

By Kaitlyn O'Connor.

Dedication:.

For Jackie Jackson for her unwavering support. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all of your hard work on the website that you built for me! Itas wonderful! Beautiful! The best ever! Iam so thrilled!.

Prologue.

The lucky ones never knew what hit them.

One minute they were going about the business of livinga"the next, oblivion.

Already sinking into decay from much the same causes as the fall of Romea"greed, sloth, corruption, and civil disordera"the days of the great human civilization of the twenty-first century had been numbered even before Mother Nature had unleashed her wrath but, as she had many times before, Mother Nature proved mightier than all the combined power mankind could wield. Civilization didnat crumble slowly to dust. It was vaporized in a nanosecond by the twin asteroids that whipped around the sun, evading the Near Earth Object Tracking System and blindsiding the planet with virtually no warning. One plowed into the North American continent, the second into Europe.

For the survivors who clawed their way out of the rubble and ash, life was h.e.l.lish and it only got worse. The debris thrown into orbit by the twin impacts blotted out the sun. The fires that erupted from the superheated air created by the impacts added their pollution and the Earth began to cool to a nearly perpetual winter.

And then the angels fell to Earth and brought the wrath of G.o.d to the remnants of the once mighty civilization left to eke out an existence on the scarred Earth.

They called themselves the Lawgivers.

The humans called them winged demons from h.e.l.l.

Chapter One.

Lexa scanned the rolling plain that stretched out in every direction, virtually featureless beyond those dips and swells, wondering which way would lead to water and which to death.

There were some things one never got used toa"not reallya"hunger, thirst, being too cold or too hot, being so tired you felt like you would drop where you stood and simply cease to live a being afraid. Lexa had never been able to get used to it, at any rate.

Shead hardly known anything else in her life, and yet theread been moments, brief segments of time, when none of those things had been the case, and it only took the absence of complete misery sprinkled throughout her memory to make being miserable from one thing or another, or many of them at once, nearly intolerable at times.

She didnat remember abeforea, at least not the abeforea that most people meant when they talked about before. She remembered her before. Even though the memories were faded and ragged around the edges, she remembered Sir, her motheras man. She vaguely remembered her mother. She remembered best the baby brothers and sister shead helped Sir take care of because her mother was gone. aThe daya, her day, was foggy in her memory, not because there were gaps but because it had been like an explosion, so many things happening at once that it had been hard to grasp anything but terror.

It was the day the raiders had descended upon them and her whole world changed.

Most people, though, were referring to athe dayaa"before athe daya. Theread been an explosion then, from what shead heard, but shead been born after that. She wasnat certain how long afterwards, but the only world shead known was nothing like the one shead heard olders talk about. That place was so very different from everything shead always known that she wasnat completely convinced it had ever existed. So much of what they talked about was hard even to imagine.

Like the cold that was no more than a aseasona and then went awaya"a blue sky, green things everywhere.

Shead seen blue sky, thougha"not when she was young. It had been after shead finally escaped King Ralph, after shead fled the nightmare her life had been since athe daya because shead finally realized that anything was better than that. Even death would have been more welcome. When shead realized that truth, shead ceased to be afraid of being alone, of facing the scarred Earth, the unknown, by herself. It had given her the courage to flee.

The first time shead seen blue sky, she wasnat sure whether shead been more awed or terrified. No one else had been certain either, at least no one who, like her, had been born aaftera, she supposed because they hadnat really believed in it either. But one day the thick, boiling clouds that formed a roof over the world had seemed to thin and then tear, and there it was, pale streaks briefly visible far above and a near blinding glint of something up there that poured heat down on them. Shead thought it might be the sun, but it was a monster unlike the hazy ball of light she was used to seeing when night gave way to day.

That warmth had felt glorious at first. It had warmed her like no fire ever had. It seemed like shead been cold her whole life, sometimes colder than other times, but always cold and shead thought it must be a good sign. But then the numbing cold had begun to subside and shead gotten warmer and warmer until shead begun to fear she would catch fire.

The first few times shead seen blue sky, shead felt much the samea"not quite as awed, not quite as frightened, but still uncertain of whether or not she liked it or should be afraid. Slowly, so slowly she was hardly aware that things were changing at first, the thick, boiling gray and white clouds she was so used to began to vanish little by little and she could see blue sky more and more often. And, as it did, the ice that covered everything began to shrink and melt away. The mud and the heat from that enormous, fiery ball in the sky began to war with the misery of cold and then she began to see green things, many green things, not just the occasional stubby brownish-green things she was used to, but tiny, bright carpets of green bursting from the soil almost everywhere she looked.

It was scary the way things had begun changing. She wasnat certain if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Mostly it was just something else to worry abouta"whether it would make life harder than it already was or not.

Lexa stopped abruptly as she topped the rise shead been struggling up, realizing shead allowed her mind to wander from her purpose to her miserya"a very dangerous thing to do.

Before her in the gathering gloom of dusk was a village. Her throat closed. Her stomach growled and her heart commenced to pounding more rapidly with a combination of fear and excitement.

Shead run out of water almost two days earlier and she was so low on food that she hadnat eaten more than a few bites here and there for nearly a week. Before her lay the possibility of replenis.h.i.+ng her nearly exhausted supplies.

And also the possibility of getting killed or raped or enslaved.

For once she didnat debate the wisdom of going in or avoiding it entirely, however. She had needs she couldnat ignore anymore. She couldnat afford to bypa.s.s the village. She was going to die if she didnat get water at least, and, as dangerous as it would be to approach the village with the hope of bartering for what she needed without getting killed in the attempt, she really didnat have a choice.

Strangers were never welcome. On one level, she resented it, but then again she understood their position. Strangers represented a threat. At the very least, it was another hungry mouth and no one wanted to share what little they had with strangers when it might mean someone they knew and cared about could go hungry, or starve to death, in the strangeras place.

At the worst, a stranger could be a spy, someone sent in alone to a.s.sess the fortifications, the number of able-bodied defenders, weapons and munitions, and the food and water supply.

Water was pretty much a given. Villages were few and far between and they only sprouted up where there was water, a supply sufficient to make squatting on it, and fighting to defend it, worthwhile.

Food was another matter. Any time enough people squatted in one place to form a village it meant feeding them was going to be more of a problem the bigger the village got a and this one looked like a fairly sizeable village. Even from a distance and with the shadows gathering because the sun was riding low in the sky, Lexa could see upwards of two to three dozen huts.

Clearly, it dated back to abefore the daya. Besides the inevitable rickety shanties and huts she was accustomed to seeing, there were quite a number of skeletal remains of buildings that were more than one story tall. There were actually two or three of those buildings that were nearly intact a or at least looked like they were from where she stood.

Naturally, it was fortified. It wouldnat be there at all if not for that because of the bands of roaming gangs. Rusting vehicles had been dragged into a rough circle around the village and rubble from the useless buildings piled on top and around them to form a wall eight to ten feet high. Jagged, spear-like posts were wedged into the rubble pile at angles and jutted outward like the quills of a porcupine.

There were a couple of dangerous-looking men wielding guns guarding the only gate Lexa could see and she eased back down the rise and sat down to consider whether she ought to risk going in after all or not.

Only two guards could mean several things.

The village hadnat had a lot of trouble with the gangs and didnat see a need for more than two guards.

Or the village had been taken over by a gang and they were confident they had control over the whole territorya"which meant they were some really bad sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes.

Either one, she decided, was as likely as the other.

She hadnat seen a soul in weeks, which might support the latter theory.

Of course, she went out of her way to avoid running in to anyone. Traveling alone was a sure way to get killed if one didnat make it a habit to avoid people.

Unfortunately, since she didnat dare make contact with other people except when it was absolutely necessary, she was now in a position where it was absolutely necessary. She couldnat make it much further without water. She wasnat going to last a h.e.l.l of a lot longer without food.

Getting up after a few minutes, she began to circle the village, easing up whenever she found a vantage point that would allow it, to check out the fortifications.

The best thing, for her, about the fortifications, was that they were designed to keep attackers out in general, not to keep people in, and there were usually several places where escape was possible if not a breeze.

By the time shead circ.u.mnavigated the village, shead spotted three possibilities for a quick exit if she discovered that was desirable and she felt better about approaching the gate and asking permission to enter.

Strangely enough, the guards, she discovered when shead reached her original position and could see the gate again, had disappeared. Her heart seemed to trip over itself. More than half expecting one or both to come up behind her, she searched the area more closely and finally spotted both men sitting in the shadows near the gate. They looked like they were asleep.

She frowned. That was odd. Really, really peculiar.

She didnat know what to make of ita"whether that was going to make it easier to get in or if she should go in at all.

Shead already accepted that she didnat really have a choice, though.

Cautiously, she retreated a short distance to a.s.sess the new situation and decide what to do.

She had to disguise herself. That was a given.

She couldnat look like a man. She was too short and too slighta"especially since shead had so little to eat in so long. It sure as h.e.l.l wasnat safe to look like a woman, though, and especially not a young girl. That was just asking to become a victim.

Besides which the guards were certain to suspect that shead been sent in by a gang to scope the place out ... in which case theyad probably kill her on the spot a after theyad raped her and tortured her to try to get information out of her that she didnat have.

Moving off a little further, Lexa found the cover of a medium sized boulder and some scrubby plant growth. When shead managed to untangle the knotted rope around her waist that she used to secure her supply bundle, she dropped it to the ground and peeled her tunic off. The chill wind of dusk made her skin pebble all over, but she gritted her teeth and dug out a strip of cloth, wrapped it around her chest and used it to flatten her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Not that they were particularly large to start with, but they jiggled when she moved and that was enough, shead discovered, to catch a manas eye since they always seemed to be on the lookout for a female to f.u.c.k.

She was filthy and she didnat exactly smell lovely since she hadnat been near enough water to even make a stab at cleaning herself in weeksa"a circ.u.mstance that she found extremely repugnanta"but shead discovered men didnat allow that to put them off.

Actually, in her personal experience, they generally smelled far worsea"which might account for that. They probably couldnat smell her unwashed body over their own.

There wasnat much, as a matter of fact, that would distract them once they set their sights on ruttinga"even the discovery that they were rutting another malea"except maybe a knife between the shoulder blades a.

Shead fas.h.i.+oned herself some facial hair that she liked to think gave her more of the look of a young mana"hopefully too old to appeal to the men that liked boys, or at least were more than willing to rape them. She struggled for a few moments and finally gathered enough spit to moisten the sap she used to glue the hair to her face and patted it in place. Finally, she tied her hair back, tucked the ends into the back of her s.h.i.+rt, and wedged her battered hat back on her head, tipping it forward to shadow her face.

Everyone had long hair and any male old enough to have hair on his face had a beard. The problem was that she knew her hair was longer than it should have been for a boy the age she was trying to portray.

Because she was many years past p.u.b.erty.

When shead done the best she could with her disguise, she studied her atreasuresa, trying to decide which would make the best trade items. It had to be desirable or she wouldnat be able to get what she needed but if it was too valuable she could have the same problem. Or worse, they might decide to just take what she had.

Of course, there was always that risk.

When shead made her choices, she buried the items she didnat want to trade and what remained of her food, tied her pack to her waist once more, and tried to calm her racing heartbeat. It wouldnat do to allow them to see just how scared she was. They could smell fear and they were liable to interpret that to mean that she was a threat to them.

She discovered the guards were still sitting in the shadows near the gate when she returned. Girding herself, she stepped out into the open and approached the gate. Neither of the men moved.

She stopped when she was within a few yards of them and the gate, straining to see if she could tell if they really were sleeping or if they were dead.

They werenat snoring. She thought they should be if they were asleep and not dead, but she didnat see anything to indicate that theyad been attacked. She hadnat heard anything and if anyone else had, she wouldave heard an alarm go up. There werenat any signs of a strugglea"no churned up dirt or anything knocked over and no blood.

After a brief debate, she finally decided to risk slipping past them. That seemed dangerous, but waking them also seemed perilous, and, of the two choices, she liked trying to sneak in much better.

A cold sweat was trickling between her shoulder blades by the time shead slipped through the narrow opening.

She was definitely going to take another route out when she left, she decided.

Their stench led Gah-re-al to them. It always did.

In general, they were nomadic. Roaming in undisciplined bands, they raped the world that had already been crippled by some cosmic cataclysm and then, when they had denuded an area of food and fouled or depleted the water supply, they moved on in search of more food and water. When they gathered, they often lived in the ruins of the civilized beings that had come before them and littered their anestsa with the waste of their existence. In the heat, the unburied dead, the rotting remains of the beasts they occasionally caught and slew for food, and their own bodily waste produced a stench that was nearly overpowering and drew hordes of insects from miles around.

They were filthy, disease ridden pestsa"violent barbarians that preyed upon one anothera"raping, pillaging, and laying waste to a land already struggling to recover.

Trying to bring law and order to the savages, in Gah-re-alas opinion, was a waste of time. He, and the other lawgivers, had been trying to do so for almost a decade of this worldas cycles, but for every warlord/merciless tyrant they eliminated, it seemed two rose to take their place. They brought order and meted out justice in one area and moved on and as soon as they did, chaos erupted in their wake.

He wasnat convinced by any means that the new directive would work any better.

Rehabilitation, he thought with derisive contempt.

That implied that theyad been civilized before and he saw nothing about the species to convince him that they ever had been.

Survival in extreme situations had a way of peeling away civilized behavior, he knew. Head seen it himself firsthand, many times, in his career as a soldier Elitea"his first career, before head been rea.s.signed as a lawgiver. He supposed the scientists studying the civilization that had once thrived here could be right. The barbarians that were ravaging what remained of the world could be the remnants of that civilization, but he found that hard to believe. He had yet to stumble across any that were making any attempt to rebuild and that was what civilized people dida"they rebuilt.

At least, that was what his species did.

Mentally, he shrugged. They were aliens. Without more time and effort put forth to study them he didnat see how any conclusions could be drawn about them.

Not by the scientists, the khabler, who spent their days digging in the ground and carefully piecing together their puzzle from the things left behind. If theyad spent nearly as much time observing the behavior of the aliens, he doubted they would have reached the same conclusion.

He shook off his thoughts as he reached a rise and the dung pile his nose had been leading him to came into view. His lips curled faintly in disgust as he caught the full brunt of the stench despite the fact that head become more or less accustomed to the smells.

He doubted the social workers that were so happily plotting to arehabilitatea them would be nearly as optimistic if theyad seen one of the avillagesa where the savages squatted. In fact, he doubted they would realize that was what it was. The first time head stumbled upon one head thought it was nothing more than a refuse heap.

Narrowing his eyes against the setting sun, Gah-re-al studied the village.

There was little activity, but he spotted two guards posted at a makes.h.i.+ft gate and movement here and there within the compound to convince him that the nearly overpowering stench was from a fairly large number of savages that had been squatting on the place for months if not years.

Doubtful that it was years, he amended derisively. They hadnat found any areas capable of sustaining even a handful of people for more than a few months when they did nothing but live off the land.

If they hadnat brought yearsa worth of supplies when the first colonists had arrived to establish a base on the new world, they wouldave been dead before the first supply s.h.i.+p arrived. But then theyad been aware before they targeted it for colonization that the planet had suffered an extinction event that had wiped out at least fifty percent of all life and possibly more.

Finding planets suitable for colonization was no simple or easy task, regardless of their technical capabilities. For the most part, if the planet was reasonably stable and capable of sustaining life, it was already occupied and quite often with intelligent beings at some stage of development. If it was devoid of life, it usually couldnat sustain life. There were some worlds where conditions were such that they could be terraformed and made habitable, but that was a d.a.m.ned expensive enterprise and it was far easier to find worlds like this onea"which still required some terraforming but were basically livable and could be made more comfortable with minimal effort.

Of course the natives were rarely happy to welcome them. As it was with most orphans, quelling discontent had been his job from the time that head reached the maturity to be released from the facility where head spent most of his childhood. This one only differed in the sense that the species native to this world was more of a problem than most. They bred faster for one thing, increasing in numbers despite the harsh conditions faster than the harsh environment and the predators of their own kind, could kill them off. The only thing that slowed them down at all was the fact that their gestation period was nearly a year, but the females of breeding age generally managed to turn out a new one yearly and having two at the time wasnat particularly rarea"producing even three or four at the time wasnat unheard of for them.

For another, despite the fact that they appeared to be a species just emerging, or close to emerging, as a civilization they werenat p.r.o.ne to viewing his people, the udai, with the awe, fear, and respect they were accustomed to when they encountered primitives.

If they were better organized and less p.r.o.ne to prey on one another they could have been even more of a problema"still could be if they were allowed to continuea"so their politicians believed. For his part, he was more inclined to think theyad eventually wipe themselves out, not organize and put forth a concerted effort to wipe out the intrudersa"them.