Page 1 of Zalis
GEMMA
The noise in the bar covered the noise of the talking heads on television. It was getting crowded, which meant it was time for Gemma to head back home.
Batting her bottle from one hand to another, the glass slid easily on the condensation. She barely paid attention to the captions at the bottom of the screen. Not that she had to. She already knew what they were talking about.
The Mahdfel Bride Registry.
Gemma’s anger about the program—the draft—simmered and bubbled inside her, threatening to boil over. During the invasion, Earth signed a treaty with the Mahdfel: protection against the invaders in exchange for brides. Using genetic testing, human women were matched to alien warriors in an arranged marriage.
Every woman. There was no opting out. It was a mandatory program.
Gemma wanted to fling her bottle at the television screen.
As a temporary measure? Sure, the draft was understandable. Earth was desperate. It had been an emergency. The first wave of brides were patriots. Heroes. Taking one for the team so the team survived.
Gemma appreciated the necessity of the bargain made with the Mahdfel, but it’d been decades now. The emergency was over. Earth had rebuilt and moved on. People got on with their lives.
Except people with wombs. They were perpetually held hostage, unable to make plans for their future because they could be snatched away at any moment to go make alien babies. Unless those womb-holders had a baby of their own.
Or got married.
Gemma snorted, clutching her mug of beer.
Men.
Human men barely tried hard before; nowadays, they didn’t bother. Now that they acted as if the sun shone out of their dicks, they were worthless.
If they had tried even a little bit, they’d have treated her identical twin sister better. The car accident that made Gemma and Emry orphans also left Emry with a nasty scar on her face.
Now, no one had a problem telling the twins apart.
A bitter new thought twisted in Gemma’s gut. Emry’s alien husband didn’t treat her any better. He sent her back to Earth.
Men sucked. Every last one of them, no matter what planet they were from.
The channel flipped to a sports game.
“Hey! I was watching that,” Gemma protested.
“No, you weren’t, and I’m cutting you off,” the bartender said.
“I’m not drunk,” Gemma protested. Half a bottle of beer was nothing. Besides, she worked hard. She deserved a drink.
“Yet. You’re one more beer away from one of your political rants.”
“It’s a good rant.”
“It’s old and tired.”
“You say that because you have the privilege of being exempt from the draft.”
“If you’d actually been watching the news, you’d know that’s not strictly true.”
Gemma snorted. A recent bill to make the Mahdfel Bride Registry voluntary was making a splash in the media, but it wouldn’t go anywhere. It never did. “They love talking about changing the draft, but nothing ever actually happens.”
The woman next to her leaned over and grabbed her half-finished bottle. They tussled over the drink before Gemma relinquished her hold. Beer sloshed over the mouth of the bottle, making a mess.
Good.
