Page 1 of The Marriage Bargain

CHAPTER 1

DELLE

“Why is she always pregnant?” I grumbled to myself, dashing around my sister’s kitchen, trying to turn down the heat on the stove before the pot of macaroni noodles boiled over, grab the milk my four-year-old niece was about to spill, and snatch the box of crackers my two-year-old niece had pulled out of the pantry. All at the same time. “Sheesh, she needs six hands to keep up with you girls.”

“That’s what Mommy always says,” asserted my seven-year-old niece, Dereen, who was sitting at the table watching the entire ordeal, calmly waiting for lunch. “But she says she needs eight hands.”

“Well, she does,” I muttered. “Sissy, will you please put these crackers in the pantry then go sit with Dereen? Dereen, can you put the milk in the fridge?” I handed off the items to my nieces. “Nerra, will you…”

I stopped, sighed, and turned back to the stove. What was the point of asking a two-year-old to do anything?

“Everything okay in here?”

Into the chaos waddled my sister, Tarralynn. I half-turned from the stove, offering a wan smile.

“It’s fine, sit down. Lunch is almost ready.”

“I don’t think I feel like eating.”

She did look pale. Too pale for my liking. I picked up Nerra to trap her in her high chair. “I can’t believe you’re six months along and still puking every day. Remind me never to have kids.”

“Never have kids,” she muttered, sinking into one chair and propping her swollen feet up on its mate. “Nah, I wouldn’t say that,” she corrected herself, winking at Dereen, who was giving her a questioning look. “It’s not kids that are so bad. It’s pregnancy that’s so crap-awful.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure…” I said, turning back to the stove, stirring the pasta. My sister might think it was fine to keep popping out kid after kid, but that wasn’t how I envisioned my life going. Although, to be fair, I hadn’t envisioned my life going in its current direction, either.

My sister had been eleven, and myself seven, when the Interstellar Coalition had landed on Earth in a colonizing mission. An alliance of twelve different planets, the Interstellar Coalition was arguably the most powerful interplanetary union in our galaxy. Many of us believed they’d watched Earth for decades, waiting for us humans to whittle our numbers down with our constant wars before they stepped in to intervene and restore law and order. Intervening was their self-appointed task with planets that had been decimated by war, famine, disease, or other disasters. When the Coalition decided to act, they would first send in armed starships to quell any potential resistance. Once that was accomplished, Council Members, Lead Advisors, Ambassadors, and other dignitaries would swoop in to decide which of the twelve planets would colonize and rule their latest conquest.

Coalition invaders were known simply and universally as Overlords, because they were now Overlords to the planets they’d conquered. No matter their station on their home planet, each Overlord held a significantly higher rank in their new colony, and the indigenous people were expected to treat them with dignity, respect, and even a little fear.

When the Interstellar Coalition had arrived on Earth, they’d come to a world broken by hunger after the decades-long war. Continent fighting continent. Country fighting country. And in nations like ours, the former United States, East and South fighting North and West. The battles had come and gone like waves. The political landscape of the country had changed many times over, as new mini nations rose to be swallowed by the next invader.

Knuckling my glasses higher on the bridge of my nose, I turned off the burner under the pot of pasta, while continuing to mull over the situation.

Earth hadn’t offered much resistance to the armed starships, and the Coalition had swiftly stepped in to carve up our planet amongst its members, creating several new colonies. Everyone seemed to want a piece of the pie. It was the Asterions from Asterion, a blue, ringed planet in the solar system closest to ours, who had been granted our part of the former United States. My knowledge of history and earlier US geography was limited, but I thought ours was the section once known as Minnesota. Lots of farmland—before it was scorched to hell by the nukes and the bombs and the fires. Lots of lakes…most of them poisoned now, with the water unfit for consumption or sustaining life. But still cold. Global warming had come and gone, ushering in a new era of bone-chilling cold—doubtless brought about by terrible weapons and policies.

My sister and I had grown up in a world far removed from that of our grandparents and even our parents, in many ways. Our grandparents had seen the US and the world itself descend into war. Our parents had lived through the chaos. Managed to find each other. Managed to survive. Since childhood, Tarra and I had lived under the rule of the Interstellar Coalition and its self-proclaimed Overlords. We’d grown up with the Asterions controlling our little corner of the world.

As we’d matured, things had swiftly changed. All over Earth, the male population had been decimated by decades of warfare. As a result, you’d think women would have risen to rule. Nope. We’d gone back in time, instead. At least according to the history books my parents had managed to squirrel away from invaders. Apparently, in my grandparents and great-grandparents’ era, there were female senators, politicians, CEOs, military generals, vice-presidents, presidents, judges. Now? The aliens had taken over, pushing human women out of offices they’d once held and themselves into power. My sister at one time had wanted to be a doctor. School was expensive, though, and the nearest medical schools were over in the next colony, Reddin. Travel between colonies was discouraged. The aliens liked keeping us under their thumbs.

While she’d struggled to get clearance to move to Reddin, Tarralynn had met my brother-in-law, Zyn, fallen in love, and given up her dreams. Gave them up or changed them. Now, here she was married to Zyn for the past eight years, staying at home and producing babies, while he earned a living working with Asterion-led work crews. Currently, the rebuilding of the country set a solid focus on constructions—always by Asterion-led crews and mostly for Asterion homes, military forts, space centers, and businesses.

Humans were taken care of too, but only after our Overlords, our saviors, were cared for.

Some saviors, I thought, dishing out pale orange noodles coated with fake, powered cheese into my nieces’ bowls and plates. I stole a glance at my sister. She was holding her nose, growing paler and paler.

“Are you going to puke ag—”

I didn’t even get the words out before she clapped a hand over her mouth, jumped up, and dashed for the bathroom as fast as her pregnant self could waddle.

“Is Mommy okay?”

I sighed and ruffled Lyssa’s hair. “She’s fine. Eat your lunch.”

I didn’t know how Tarra managed it. Raising kids. Constantly being pregnant. Being one of those women unlucky enough to be sick the entire nine months. She claimed it was worth it, but…was it?

Standing at the sink, I scrubbed out the empty pot, staring out the window. Off in the distance, through a curtain of drifting snowflakes, I could see the latest towers going up on the Citadel, the seat of Asterion power in their allotted section of Earth. Although the Asterions built and rebuilt homes, buildings, and fortifications throughout their territory, the Citadel was their pride, their hub. A combination of military and business, it was beautiful, strong, and meant as a defense against roving bands of wild humans—those who’d managed to escape the Overlords’ rule and defy their laws by hiding in the wilderness. A small city was contained inside the Citadel’s walls. As Asterion power solidified, the Citadel continued to expand, and I couldn’t help admiring the lines of the buildings being erected, along with the sleekness of the towers, the rectangles, the pentagons, the cupulas at the top, the…

I was daydreaming again. The crash of a bowl and spoon smacking the floor jerked me right back to the mess two-year-old Nerra had just made, by deliberately throwing her bowl off the high chair tray.

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