I couldn't have been more wrong about Sheph not saying anything that could shock me. Surprise and disbelief rippled through the room and everyone there stared at her as what she said started to sink in. It was a decision that Sheph had made that brooked no discussion, so she waited for me to say something in response.

I didn't know what to say.

It wasn't that I was against children, considering how many of them I had. Not counting the three eggs that the Aviatoma were keeping in stasis for me, of course. Her request seemed to have come completely out of nowhere.

“Sheph...”

“No.” Sheph said and stood up, then she walked over to me and knelt down in front of me. “We've gone through a lot over the years... we all have.” She said and tapped my knees.

I seriously thought about refusing even that little request, then held in my sigh and moved my legs apart.

Sheph gave me a warm and welcoming smile as she moved in close and rested her hands on my abdomen. “You are a cold, hard, and calculating man.” She said. “You are also kind, loving, and will do anything for the people you care about.”

“You're forgetting mass murderer and planet killer.” I said.

“No, I'm not.” Sheph said. “The planet thing... well, one was an accident. The other you did to make a point. It worked. The Order tries to fight against you; but, even they know it's becoming futile to resist their eradication.” Her hands rubbed up my bodysuit to my chest and then down again. “You've died how many times and you've always come back.”

“Sheph...”

“I want that for my child.” Sheph said. “I'm not even asking for a guarantee. Just the chance. I want the chance that my child will have the same ability of always coming back to our family.”

“Wouldn't that be nice?” Noma said wistfully. “To have a little Hunter running around...” She turned her head to look at Monica. “...or a little Hailey.”

Monica took in a sharp breath.

“A little girl who loves her mother and would do anything to protect her, including going off with a relative stranger, just so he would eventually go back to rescue her mother to make her happy.”

“That's... not really how it happened.” I said.

Noma chuckled as the Presence wavered slightly. “It's close enough to be the truth.” She said and reached out and touched Sheph's face. “Her need is great, her desire even more so.” She looked back at my face. “You gave her a legacy contract to let her pass her position down to her children. Will you also give her the ability to do so?”

“I...” I looked around at everyone's faces and saw acceptance, a couple slight nods, then I ended my survey on Sheph's face. “You just want a kid with my hair.”

“YES I DO!” Sheph yelled as she threw her hands up into the air in triumph, then everyone laughed.

I let Gleas and Noma go and sat up straight, then cupped the sides of her face. “This is strictly a business transaction and...”

“Just shut up and kiss me.” Sheph said as she grabbed me by my hair and pulled me into a kiss.

*

Sheph inadvertently started what was eventually called 'baby fever'. Once word got around... as in, once Opina told everyone that Hunter was open for business, well... let's just say that he was a lot busier doing things other than building weapons of mass destruction.

The next six months were filled with a flurry of activity.

During the days he would make the weapons and during the nights he would visit those that wanted his legacy. At least, a couple of them claimed that. What they really wanted was just him and having a child was just going to be a bonus, especially since he wasn't using Presence to stop what happened when he finished.

Simone was the most vocal about trying her hardest to conceive a child, even though there had never been a recorded incident of a successful mating between her species and another, let alone her species and whatever Hunter's species was. She still tried her best to get pregnant, despite the odds against it.

Surprisingly, Gleas was the first to get pregnant. She was delighted by that fact, until she realized that she was now out of the regular schedule. Everyone felt as bad for her as she felt about it herself. That is, until Hunter told her that he would be visiting her regularly anyway. She accepted his promise gratefully and enjoyed it for as long as she could.

Sheph was next barely a week later, and she didn't feel bad at all about not having Hunter in her bed on a constant basis. She still asked for his attention occasionally, though... and he gave it. He would do nothing less for the mother of his child.

Noma... well... she loved it when he sacrificed all those potential lives to her. Her powers and abilities increased every time he did that for her, and she loved him more and more as he tried to override her ability to get her pregnant.

Unfortunately, Noma's body reacted automatically as he made love to her and she absorbed both his Presence and his sacrifices. She couldn't stop it, even though she wanted to. He kept trying, even when she was unconscious, and it still didn't work as he felt her absorb everything. Every time she woke up, she thanked him for trying his hardest.

The warships Hunter had ordered were delivered in successive waves of five and when Daniel and Deborah came back to the station, they got to work modifying them up to the proper specs for their warships. It was nearly two full time jobs with that and making weapons to stock them. It was pretty bad that he thought of visiting Simone and Noma to try and get them pregnant as his 'relaxing time'.

It was during the flurry of activity that Hunter was approached, very discretely, by both Sandy and Beatrice. They didn't say anything and only let their feelings and thoughts speak for themselves. Hunter didn't say anything in return and he gave Sandy a hug and promised to never kiss her, then did the same to Beatrice. Their love for him grew as his understanding of what they wanted filled them with resolve, then he started visiting them discretely as well.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Needless to say, they both became pregnant within a week of each other.

*

Hen was ecstatic to have so many people to take care of after giving them all blessings. She wasn't surprised that she hadn't needed to visit me for any of them. She tried several times to bless Noma, whose body just absorbed the extra Presence. Simone wouldn't give up and kept getting blessings and trying to get me blessings as well. None of them worked.

We had also brought Hen and Adona to the next system once a week and ensured that all the people that had become pregnant during Hailey's and my honeymoon, had full time local health care and we paid for everything.

I made my visits to the second planet in the Dizahl System to unload my rage and dug up the things that the short alien wanted dug up. I was actually running out of things to dig up and looked towards the first planet in the system. Thanks to a suggestion by Monna, who told me that I didn't have to actually leave the shuttle to do what I was doing, let me get out my frustrations a lot easier than I thought possible.

I now owned The Bogorim Corporation and Sheph assumed her official duties just in time to take maternity leave. The board didn't mind that in the least, because it gave them another year without her input to do whatever they wanted. They didn't realize that Sheph was perfectly capable of doing her job from off-site and even from in bed if necessary, and she did.

When the year was done, I had all one hundred of the new warships fully loaded and converted, hired two pilots for each, and then gave them their orders. They all left at the same time and entered hyperspace, fully prepared to carry out their missions. They were getting a very substantial pay for it, too. The thing was, with a hundred ships, even if they only took out ten systems of Order members, that was a thousand systems for a single mission.

With the new weapon loads and expanded missile capacities, they could take out twenty to thirty systems each, before they had to come home and reload. My mission to remove The Order from the universe was expanding at an exponential rate.

My six original warships were currently docked at the station, because all of their pilots had become pregnant, except for one. Simone despaired over that, especially when Deborah and Jelly had received blessings from Hen and their husbands had obliged and given them children, too. Simone and I kept trying, though. Noma still couldn't get by her own ability, so she was left without much hope, either.

Monica was the happiest of them all, because she had so many little boys and girls that would soon be running around that she could take care of. Her job as a mother was never going to end, and she was ecstatic about it.

We still had to hire professional nannies to help corral the little devils. They all had touches of Presence in them, even so young as babies, and it was strong. They were going to have to be watched closely by me, Noma, and Simone, since we had the most experience with Presence.

Lashina managed to wear her pants for four and a half minutes and tore her pants just outside my room. It was the farthest she had ever gone, and she looked down at the last six inches to my door. I opened it and looked at her.

“Hunter, I... I'll keep trying!” Lashina said and I felt her resolve.

“It's close enough.” I said with a smile and she leapt at me and kissed me. Not surprisingly, she became pregnant that night.

Kara was the only one that wasn't happy with the situation. She walked around, under guard by Isabella, and all she was seeing was everyone else being happy and she was miserable. She made her way back up to her room and stopped when she saw me appear in the middle of the media room.

“Do you understand now?” I asked and she turned to look at me. “The way you're feeling right now... that exact feeling... is what I've felt my entire time growing up in The Order.”

“N-no, you... no.” Kara shook her head. “You would have been...”

“Driven insane by it.” I said and she nodded. “I almost was, especially when they took Emari from me.”

“It's true!” Lashina said as she floated out of my room behind me. “His head was a mess!”

Kara looked at her and caught her breath. “Lashina!”

Lashina laughed a giddy pixie laugh and turned around in mid-air to show off the very tight custom made knee-length pant-shorts. “Doesn't my cute little butt look sexy?”

“But... but... pants!”

Lashina laughed again. “It's okay! They're super stretchy, too!” She said and did the splits in mid-air, which would have torn a normal pair of pants.

“But...”

“It was a test.” Lashina said. “A test to see...”

I reached out and took her hand, and she floated over to hug my neck from behind.

“It was to see if I could let something go. One little thing.” Lashina said and kissed my cheek. “It took me a long time to pass it...”

“...and almost as long to understand why afterwards.” I said and she laughed, because the Presence wavered.

“He's such a kidder.” Lashina said. “It only took a few seconds.”

Kara gasped, because the Presence didn't waver. “H-how?”

“It's simple.” Lashina said and let me go and floated away. She made a motion with her hand like a wave, then Isabella walked away.

“What did she do?” Kara asked.

“She waved.” I chuckled. “No powers or anything. It was just a wave.”

“But...”

“Kara, I want to ask you something.” I said and walked over to her, then stopped ten feet away. “What would you do if you had your Presence back right now?” I asked and snapped my fingers for dramatic effect, then her wrist and ankle restraints dropped off.

Kara groaned as all of her suppressed Presence came back to the surface. She put her hand over her heart and dropped to one knee, then suddenly the opened cuffs on the floor were gone and there was a Light sword beside her hand. It was her Light sword and she grabbed it and held it tightly to her chest, next to her heart. In the next instant, her robes were there in front of her, neatly folded.

She tore off her princess dress uniform that she had worn for close to two years and quickly put on the tight pants and long sleeved t-shirt. She sighed at the comfort she felt and then she pulled the familiar weight of the robes onto her shoulders. Kara closed her eyes and saw that her things were back in the hidden pocket, despite her leaving them in the drawer in her room. She turned her head and 'looked' into the room and her desk, and the items were gone.

“Yes, it's really all your things.” I said. “So, what are you going to do?”

Kara stood up and activated her light sword. She took a fighting stance, then lunged towards me. I made no move to block her or to turn on my protective barrier. She swung her Light sword at my head and just as it was about to strike me, it turned off and Kara landed as light as a feather in front of me.

“You get it now, don't you?” I asked. “Now that you've felt what it's like to be on both sides of what The Order does, what it's guilty of, both the good and the bad... you know in your heart that something is wrong.”

Kara nodded. “I didn't feel you probing my mind.” She said. “How do you know what I'm thinking?”

“I don't.” I said. “I just know what the truth is, and now you're starting to see it again for yourself.”

“Again?” Kara asked.

“You saw it when you were on Relique with me. What the goddess was willing to do to an unknown amount of people in a whole city, just to have them believe she existed.”

Kara was going to ask me what I meant, then she remembered the giant portal that the goddess had opened to make our two parties to work together to close it. She thought about that for several minutes after she hung her Light sword onto her belt, then she looked into my eyes.

“Hunter.” Kara said and her gaze hardened. “Why didn't you try to defend yourself when I attacked?”

“I knew you didn't mean it.” I said.

“How?” Kara asked. “I didn't know that I was going to stop until I did!”

I reached up to cup the side of her face for a moment. “It's simple, really.” I said with a smile. “You may have changed your clothes to look like your old self; but, you kept the tiara.”

Kara gasped and reached up with both hands and felt the diamond encrusted tiara was still buried into her styled hair. She gently pulled it out and lowered it as she turned it around and stared at it.

“I'll see you at supper.” I said and walked back over to my room and closed the door.