NSC – Be As Gods 1 – The Sons of Adam

Thank you for reading! Me and my coauthor Darinost are gradually combining forces and blogs, so the joint comment section for our stories is currently located on discord! Come on in and let us know what you thought, we don’t bite.

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2154 AD
New Antioch

The atmosphere was charged in New Antioch as the crowd leaned in on every word that the speaker was saying. The room of the habitat felt almost like the air itself was electrified, everyone practically standing at attention, their eyes not wandering in the slightest from the man at the head of the assembly. Their focus was rapt… but that was to be expected. The man before them spoke with the grace of a ruler who knew that all of his subjects were under his command – He increased his range and lowered it at will, speeding up and slowing down. It was a calculated thing, a practiced thing, to keep the attention of the crowd that was surrounding him.

It was the year 2114, and as far as the inhabitants of this station were concerned Earth was long gone. It wasn’t, of course… on a good day if they turned a telescope towards it they could still see the world glittering like a star, even from as far away as the asteroid belt, but the facts didn’t matter… not to the Sons of Adam. The Earth was as good as done. All the reports of prosperity from its governments were nothing but hot air so far as these men and women were concerned, lies to keep the faithless bound to a realm of demons.

“We all know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah,” the man at the front said. When Father Elias spoke, everyone listened. He wasn’t a priest of any recognized religion, but that didn’t stop him from claiming the title – he had a higher calling. He saw the truth, and God spoke through him. Who cared what the corrupt and heretical had to say about his credentials? Certainly not the man with a full beard hanging down from his jaw, his hair dark and shiny despite his years. His mane was pulled back in a braided ponytail and he wore an immaculate white robe, perfectly pristine despite the relative squalor of all around him. It only added to the presence and aura he gave off.

This was the origin, New Antioch of the Sons of Adam. Once a mere handful, they now numbered in the thousands, crowding into every space on the dusty crevices of New Antioch to listen to what Father Elias Keye had to say. He was their leader, the one who spoke directly to God Almighty, the one who knew when the Earth would be smote in two for the biblical descriptions of the end times to take place.

“We all know it will happen,” Father Elias preached. “The earth will be dipped into the ocean of fire. The Rapture has already taken place… for that is why we are here!” The crowd cheered. The air was rife with excitement, the happiness that came of knowing that the decadent nations of Earth were soon to know the wrath of God. It made the burden of the gospel less stressful to bear. It made them special. Elias’s eyes roamed through the crowd, wild and strong, watching them rejoice in the wrath of the lord. He shared in their excitement, buoyed by the belief of punishment for those who would not listen to him… to those who ridiculed them when they tried to convert them to the way of the lord. Sometimes, Elias wished he could help the lord carry out his swift vengeance on the stubborn population of humanity, people who had ears but would not listen… perhaps someday soon, the lord would ask it of him.

“The mercy of the lord is closed upon those who still dwell among the children of Lilith, for such is how it would be on the judgment day – that the children of God will be lifted from the earth and make it to the heavens. In the land that has been given!” Elias continued. He, himself, was entranced by the song of his voice, which rode high and low and soft. Its texture was one that demanded attention, and the people were attentive.

The asteroid on which the Sons of Adam had set up their base had been mined for years, mined by his father and by Father Elias as a younger man. It was the main source of his wealth… the wealth that had allowed him to serve God properly. When God had spoken to him, he had answered the call. This was their heaven, a place of godliness and order. They planted seeds though they were not in soil, but Elias didn’t care… God blessed them with water aplenty in the asteroids to grow with. Still, each year that came brought with it more problems at harvest, problems he found a way to explain away. He couldn’t let the faithful leave this place of holiness to go back to Earth, which overflowed with the daughters of Lilith and sin. Strength was the first virtue – it was God’s will that the strong should dominate the weak. God had made the strong strong, had made the weak weak. If someone could not prevent themselves from being dominated, then it was God’s will that they submit, and seeking to escape your station was the first sin.

That was the sin of the daughters of Lilith, the sin of the Antichrist that had overwhelmed old Earth. The temptation and cruelty. They had let the weak – those harlots – rule.

Their troubles with food were merely a test, a little temptation to abandon their faith, to see if they really deserved heaven. God was watching. Tonight, however, Elias had found a way at last. Tonight, their prayers were answered.

“When we left that place of unrighteousness and all manner of disgusting acts,” he said, staring at the crowd, “We thought this place, here, was to be our heaven.” His stare meant he wanted silence, and just like water fizzling out of a tap when closed, the cheers dried up and the people quickly became ready to lap up his wisdom and instructions from God again. He was God’s chosen man, and he knew what he was doing.

His voice had dropped so terribly low that even with the mic, a little speaker placed near his mouth, the crowd strained to hear what he was saying. “God wanted something else,” he said. “We have been spared from the second death and the lake of fire that the Earth will soon be plunged into. And make no mistake!” he screamed, raising his hand. “Make no mistake, all other colonies on different parts of the world, hanging onto stones, hanging unto the moon, tilling the field of Mars. They will all fall with them. The same lake of fire shall swallow all the followers of the daughters of Lilith, but Heaven will prevail!”

The cheer came again from the people standing around the platform on which their leader stood. There was nothing but reference and awe in the eyes of the followers. They waved and screamed, and seemed to be just one decibel away from exploding.

When he had formed the Sons of Adam, he had been confused. He hadn’t known then what God was trying to tell him… he had just known that the world was wrong, and it was the women’s fault. For the last century, since space industry and travel had become the dominant industry, they had increasingly been calling the shots… that was why the world was falling apart. That he had known… that those weak creatures had escaped their place. That men, the stronger sex, were to rule and these demonically empowered harlots were upsetting God’s order. He just hadn’t known what to do about it at first.

Recruiting wasn’t hard. There were plenty of people who understood that the world was wrong and longed for it to make sense again, longed to hear God’s word. Longed for a time when faith mattered. They had come in droves, and once they learned that the strong ruled here, more came. Plenty of women came with them, of course. There were many who were wise enough to understand that their place in the world was to be controlled, and also many foolish enough to believe they could change and control their husbands, boyfriends, lovers. One of those two things was proper. The other was an abomination… and it was seeing the latter that finally let Elias understand what he needed to change.

The first principle of faith was that God made one strong or weak. That the strong ruling over the weak was not merely justified but divine will as proved by the way God had made you. It wasn’t just acceptable, it was holy. With that in mind, Elias set out to find what the role of women should be in his new society. The first revelation he had was obvious, really. It was right there in black and white, in the very first of God’s books… the tale of Genesis. God had created women as a companion to man. That without the stronger halves, woman had no purpose, no reason to be. For that reason, anything that a man – the strong – did to a woman – the weaker – could surely be no sin. Women existed to give companionship and service to men, so while men might be kind enough to provide for their lessers, it was their duty to provide comfort in kind.

Strange though most of the growing Terran Federation would have found this at the time, few people – men or women – in New Antioch had any trouble with his decree. To them, it made sense, and it gave them a purpose in life. People didn’t argue, even when Father Elias pointed out that nudity was no sin either. After all, the first wearing of clothing was the result of being tricked by the serpent. Men, of course, were strong – they could wear protective clothing, the better to fight and rule and dominate. Women had no such obligation, and so soon many of the women walked the halls naked.

It wasn’t long then before the first girl, a pretty blonde named Sarah, came to Father Elias in tears, crying that she had been raped. Father Elias, however, had not been amused. “Were you strong enough to stop him?” the newly minted priest had asked her. “If not, then what happened to you was merely right and proper.” Then, for the sin of resisting her rape, he’d decreed that her punishment for such sin should be twenty kisses of his leather belt on “her tempting succubus tits,” followed by her “satisfying the temptation she had wrought in him as well” with her mouth. When she had doubted the wisdom of his judgment, Elias – far stronger than her – had forced her to the ground, tied her hands behind her back with a cord, and begun his holy work. By the time he’d finished, she had run out of tears to cry, her tits were more red and purple than they were pink, and she had swallowed his load as she whimperingly sucked his cock.

The next day, he gave a sermon on the subject of not rape, but submission. “It is your duty to serve those stronger than you in all things,” he preached. “In this, no one, man or woman, is immune. Even I must serve God, because God is where strength flows from.” He looked at the blonde crying softly at his words, her tits still bruised as she sat on the bench. “For women, it is of course worse, for you are weaker still. But God is merciful, is he not?” Elias asked. “If you meet their violence with love and acceptance, you appropriately beg for God’s love and show it to your dominator with every breath. As they use you, give thanks to them for honoring God’s will. Tell them that you love them, and that you serve them, and you too will be doing God’s work.”

It seemed that men in New Antioch, and women, quickly fell in line with God’s will. The rate of sexual servitude by the women in the habitat didn’t exactly spike up instantly, but the temptation offered by so many helpless victims and their farness from Earth, combined with Elias’s preaching, soon had its effect. Certainly, having their victims tell each man that abused them that they loved him certainly did encourage them to rape that woman again in the future, and reduced their inhibitions to raping other women when the urge struck. As for Sarah, well, it wasn’t like she was strong enough to protect herself from men, and after she had been raped that first time she was quite popular. It wasn’t long before she came crawling back to Father Elias to beg him to protect her. She did her begging on her knees with his cock in her mouth, naturally, and it was then that Elias was certain he was doing God’s work. He protected her of, course… she was his now, she served him, so he would protect her… as long as he cared to enjoy her body. It was only right.

Education became more brutal in New Antioch after that. After all, the Bible was clear to Elias that it was the duty of the strong to correct and discipline the weak. The men of this Garden of Eden could discipline the women in whichever way they chose. Sometimes they would slap or spank them. Sometimes they would whip their tits or pussies. Sometimes they would put their breasts in bondage, or hang weights from their nipples, or sometimes just simply rape them. It wasn’t always clear what lesson they were supposed to learn from a given punishment, but that didn’t stop every single woman from swearing up and down each time that she had learned it and would be forever grateful for the teaching.

The purpose of women was clear to the growing cult. God had commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, so as to spread the belief in God and knowledge of the true way. In that way, even the weakest of women could be useful… they had a cunt, after all. A hole to give men pleasure and to be bred… to create more women to be breeders, and more men to be raised to be strong and reject the devil’s lies that had swallowed Earth. A woman who wasn’t pregnant and wasn’t being fucked was a worthless woman, and by the time they had been up here for 6 months every man left believed that.

By this stage, most women in New Antioch were being raped nightly. At this point, some of the women began to actively resist, to have second thoughts about belonging to her. Elias, and several other of the bigger, stronger men, had assured them that they did… and proved it until each woman, sobbing with rapturous joy, had agreed. After all, it wasn’t like they had anywhere to go – the nearest other human outpost was Ceres, several solid months of flight spinwise through the belt. Still, for those rebels, he decided it was wise to weld collars in place around their neck that allowed them to be shocked if they ever tried to go near one of the ships.

For the women that had come here, few were willing anymore… but that was no longer distressing to Father Elias. These women were poisoned with the false beliefs of demons. Deep down, they had learned the lies that the daughters of Lilith had taught them all their lives, and they needed to be taught otherwise. For now, a woman of New Antioch had a life consisting of a more or less unbroken cycle of rape, pain, and humiliation. Even sleep offered little comfort: it was far from uncommon for a woman to find herself woken not by any alarm, but from the thrust of a man’s cock. The only exception to the everpresent opportunities for rape was prayer.

Prayer was a special time for the women. After about the thousandth protest by one of them, Father Elias had decreed that if they were going to be foolish enough to continue speaking the lies of the demons, they would not speak at all. The only purpose of their lying, corrupted mouths was to eat, service men, occasionally to breathe, and to pray. Women had no need to speak at other times, so he had set their collars to shock them if they spoke anywhere except during prayers.

Now there was a specific prayer they were to recite. One where they pledged themselves to the natural order, where they would service the strong. One where they admitted their sin and that they knew better now, that they existed only for the service of men. They prayed to be raped as often as possible, and as painfully as possible, so that they would learn their lesson. They prayed for God, in his wisdom and mercy, to free them from the lies and take away the false freedom that demons promised them, to free them from choice and make them good women of the lord. They prayed to be impregnated by their rapists. Elias made them masturbate as they prayed, and repeat the prayer until they orgasmed, or else they wouldn’t be permitted to rise, to eat, to sleep… at first, he was concerned about false proclamations of faith by some of the weaker willed, more sinful women who seemed to want to keep masturbating without climax for hours, away from the men waiting to make use of them, so eventually Elias had constructed a nice bed of nails for all the women to kneel on while they uttered their recitations. After that, prayers were remarkably more fervent. And they must have pleased God because before long he had blessed them all – there wasn’t a fertile woman among them who was not pregnant.

For their children, they would be raised better than their mothers had been. Free from the lies. A woman blessed enough to have a son would get to be a role model to him if she behaved… if she was good, if she followed God’s will, she might sometimes even be allowed to speak, to tell their child they loved him, to be proud of his strength. Of course, Elias couldn’t risk letting the demon’s influence spread even unintentionally, so the Lord commanded that the boy’s first rape when he came of age would be the woman who bore him… to ensure he saw that she was not special, and to rejoice in being stronger than she who had carried him. A woman who brought a daughter into the world, on the other hand, would be serving as an entirely different kind of role model. Silent, beaten every time she misbehaved, and taught by her fathers and Father Elias about the will of God, her mother would be a mute, submissive example for the new woman in New Antioch.

By the time forty years, and two full generations of women, had passed, there was practically no trace of the daughters of Lilith left among his people, and God was pleased. The only bits left were the new recruits to their faith. Trusted men and women, those who knew their place, had been sent to return to Earth in order to preach and recruit and, when appropriate, to find young women who had their souls in danger of corruption by the devil and save them, bringing them to New Antioch to be taught. By the time of the fourth decade, when Father Elias was 87, they had gotten much better at saving the souls of those who were in peril and bringing them into the fold quickly… it was amazing what a few weeks of concentrated rape and torment could do to prove to a woman that the lie that she was strong was just that… an evil, demonic lie.

Even so, there were still more men than women to be found, so Father Elias ensured they had to share. At any time, he made sure there was at least one woman, chosen by God for punishment, on public display. Left bound in public all day so that any man might use her until she had served at least a hundred of the Sons of Adam. Only then would she be let down to rest. This, in God’s wisdom, served two purposes. First, it prevented a woman from spending too much time in solitude with a single man who had grown attached to her. It would be a shame if one of the daughters of Lilith could get her claws into one of the faithful, after all. Second, it ensured that often no man knew whose child the woman bore, preventing any misplaced and foolish urges to protect “their” daughter than one of the men might have, and so safeguarded her soul from the Devil’s corruption.

Their numbers had grown greatly in the forty years since then as well… but Father Elias knew what to do. He always did. God spoke through him, after all. From the platform, Elias smiled as he took in the devotion of his faithful followers. Indeed, they will all be blessed by the Grace of God for listening to his prophet, he thought. Then he raised his hand for silence, and the cheers died down again. “We live in a special time,” he said. “A special time.” His voice had dropped again, and the crowd had pulled in closer to pick up every word that he had to say. The floors of the habitat were old and corroded but that didn’t matter, only God’s will and salvation mattered… no one could even see the floor because the length and breadth of it was covered with teeming devotees who wanted to snatch words right out of their leader’s mouth.

“The devil has not been idle, my children,” Father Elias promised, his voice low, making them hang on each and every one of them. “He has recently given the daughters of Lilith a new cursed abomination, an affront to natural law created by that demon Lilis. Using these tools, the monsters mean to spread their evil to all of God’s creation, their filth contaminating even the stars. They mean to send out thousands of colony ships, filled with brainwashed masses and the immoral men and women who would tell you this is reasonable,” he told them, his voice slowly rising. “They would steal the universe from God… Fleets that would darken the sun, sailing from Earth, spreading their pollution and lies across the stars where God’s light cannot find them. The devil and his demonic harlots will have won.”

Elias’s voice raised in a roar. “But the creator’s wrath is a terrible thing! He knows what they do! The lord has decreed that the time of Earth has come to an end!” he said. “The nest of evil will be destroyed together with the daughters of Lilith and the Earth as we know it will be no more.” Many wept, and the women in the crowd wept hardest of all… not because they missed it or the lie it offered, because none of these women had ever known Earth or a place other than New Antioch, but because their emotions were strong. It was just another thing that made them weak. He let them wail for long seconds, a counterpoint to his divine sermon, before he shouted out the next words. “But do not mourn, my children! God has not forsaken his faithful! A new Jerusalem shall arise, he has promised me!”

Again, the cheers erupted through the crowd. The fanatics were getting more excited by the second, but still the moment Elias raised his hand, again the chatter and the cheers died. Order was restored. It was just as the leader loved it. He ruled the people of God with an iron hand, just the way God did with his children. They respected him, but most importantly, they obeyed him.

“Go forth and multiply, the Bible said,” Elias intoned slowly. Then he paused and let his eyes move through the crowd in a dramatic way, keeping the men guessing what he was driving at. He had them where he wanted. They could not wait to swallow everything that he put out now. “In our fabricators, in our workshops, and in our docks, we have been building ships… and so far, I have answered no one as to why.” Hardly anyone had even asked. His authority was absolute… the faithful just did what he said, for they watched what God wanted through him, needed him to tell them the lord’s will… the one stronger than themselves, the one who ruled the Universe. Whatever God wanted, the Sons of Adam were ready to do.

Father Elias beamed, become Abraham of a new faith, the father of righteousness to his people. “God has revealed to me a truth – there are new Gardens of Eden awaiting us, among the stars. We are to be the pilgrims who shall be as God’s chosen people,” he declared. “The demons are slow. They think the light of God’s righteousness is dimmed, and that there are none left with the will to obey his scripture. They are wrong!” He shouted. “We can beat them. We can reach these worlds ahead of them, and when the demons arrive we will meet them with the shining light of God Almighty and drive their evil back to where it came from! The galaxy belongs to God’s children, not the devil’s!”

Men cheered. Women, ever demure and quiet, still smiled, their eyes wide and hopeful. “God has given us this gift. Once, he promised us that our children would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Now each of those suns are our children… the Children of the Sons of Adam. We shall sow our seed as Abraham once did, bathe the galaxy in God’s light, and fulfill the prophecy at last!”

No one asked the details of said prophecy. People just cheered. “We have nearly completed the first set of twenty four ships,” he declared. “And we will keep building them until every star bears the light of God. God has instructed me to choose those who would be Adam and Eve to our new Edens, and they shall sleep away the long voyage through the night to awake into God’s light at their destination.”

The faithful whispered to one another. A few prayed. A few cheered. Few thoughts were spared for how they would survive in a place they had never been, on alien worlds. Few wondered if the worlds would even be habitable. If any had doubts, they were answered simply by the revelation that God would provide what they needed, that He would not forsake his children if they were strong, or obedient. Elias’s declaration was absolute.

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Elias was proud of himself as he walked to his quarters… flanked by four large, strong-bodied men who guarded his passage. He was one of the strong, the strongest, but much of his strength was in his ability to speak for God… it was beneath him to move people out of his way. The armed men marched him through the halls and back to his quarters, and as he walked he was lost in thought, considering. He would need to hold selections, he realized. For the women, it would be easy… he just needed to find the youngest, prettiest, most obedient daughters of his faith, and tell them that they were going. The men would be more difficult, though.

He chuckled to himself. Once, he would have thought that getting a bunch of able bodied, muscular, willful men to obey and do as he wished was going to be the hard part. He had been a fool in his youth. No, that was easy. The hard part was going to be cutting down the selection of volunteers down to a mere 24. The moment that they realized what they were volunteering for, to take utter ownership of one of the most lovely women in the station, to spend eternity with her among the stars with no one to stop them or challenge his rule, every single man would want to be chosen. He was going to have to choose carefully. Thankfully, the excessive wealth his family had acquired by mining this asteroid in the first place meant that he had plenty more ships coming.

His only regret was that he wasn’t going to live to see it. Elias was old now… even if he didn’t look it yet, he was in his ninth decade of life. Even life extension could only go so far, and while the colonists would sleep through the trip, the quickest voyage would still be decades. No, he would be gone by then… but he would have spread his seed further than any other man.

Elias entered his quarters and paused for a moment. A young looking man whom Elias knew to actually be of his middle years was sitting in one of his chairs, waiting for him. The holy man gave his least-favorite son a withering glare for a moment before he looked away, taking in how Carlos looked nervous. “What are you doing here?” Elias asked, pulling off his white robe to reveal a sturdy body that was one briefs away from nakedness. His age had done nothing to his muscle mass yet, and while his hair curled salt and better and his body hair was sparse, he looked wonderfully athletic and strong still. He went straight to another side of the tent and picked through the cartons there, coming back with milk and a collection of oats, mixing them in a bowl as he sat down to eat a humble man’s meal.

“You don’t… you don’t actually think this is going to work, father… do you?” the young man asked. He looked concerned.

Elias hesitated with his hand halfway to his mouth. “I don’t think what will work?”

“This travel,” Carlos said, gesturing. “This quest. Going through space to stars far away from which the participants have no way to ever return.”

Elias laughed. “Why would they ever need to return to this doomed pit of hell?” he asked.

“Father, you don’t even know if any of the worlds around these stars are habitable!” Carlos objected. “They might not be able to live there! Do you realize you’re sending these people to their deaths?”

The holy man’s eyes narrowed. “I rebuke you, Carlos!” he growled. “I was a fool to let you return to Earth. I wanted the best for all of my children… for them to be educated, for them to be wise. But you… you were weak,” Elias hissed. “You had your head filled with idiocy and sentiment and heresy as you studied… and what did it get you, fool? A disobedient woman who had to be taken to task for her sin? Doubt in the lord, boy?!” The father shook his head. “I thought we had worked past this. I thought you were ready to be strong at last. Listen to your heart, boy!”

“We don’t always have to use our hearts, using our brains helps a lot of the time…” Carlos pleaded. “Please Father, you have to listen to me, th-“

“An abomination in the flock must be culled, my son,” Elias said coldly, his hands flat on the table. “Those who would try to leave the Children of Adam are an affront to God… yet I showed you mercy. God showed you mercy. The only reason you are still alive, Carlos, is because I… because God… wishes it so.”

Carlos was silent for a moment. “I came back…” he whispered. “I c-”

“You came crawling back begging for our help,” Elias spat around a mouthful of food. “You couldn’t handle your bitch properly in the outside world. You were a laughingstock.”

“She was going to abort my daughter!” Carlos pleaded. “I didn’t know what to do!”

“She was going to murder your daughter,” Elias corrected, “because you had never tamed her properly. You let that daughter of Lilith prosper, encouraged her. You let her believe the lies that they told her, and if you hadn’t, then when God had blessed her with a child she would have known it was her purpose. Instead, she was going to put herself above it and shirk her holy duty.” Elias rose. “Her sins are your failure as much as they were hers!”

“I just wanted to learn!” Carlos protested. “I just wanted to study alongside her, to learn the truth of the universe and-”

“Listen to yourself, boy!” Elias roared. “Trying to take what secrets God does not give you is theft from the Almighty! And allowing a woman to do it… you should be ashamed of yourself!”

“Please, father,” Carlos begged. “This doesn’t matter. I-”

“And now it is only because of me that you have little Maria,” Elias said, eyes narrowed. “You are welcome!”

“Father, they are going to die! You have to listen t-”

“I have to do nothing but obey God,” Elias hissed. “And you, weakling, need only obey those stronger than you. I have never seen a man so pathetic, let alone one I would call my son!” Not a single one of his children, by a hundred mothers, had been this soft. He had been Sarah’s last, the final child before she grew too old to bear any more… for the life extension was expensive, and he certainly wasn’t going to waste it on bitches after all. Still, Elias had been kind… merciful, even. He had doted on Sarah in the last years of her life, had let her spend far more time with her last child than she had been able to with any previous one. He could see clearly now that that had been a mistake. It was why he had taken care to make sure that Maria had been raised right, in between whatever stupidity her parents had tried to instill in the woman.

“You would let a woman control you?” Elias said, mocking. “You would bend to her will? I’ve never seen such a weak fool… but how pathetic you are in your own cross to bear. Your heresy wears thin, boy. This is how it will be. Say one more word… one more word doubting God, one more word that isn’t singing his praises from your mouth, and my patience will be at an end.”

Carlos cowered… but he pressed on. “Father, I can’t let you kill all of those people! This is murder! You are sending people off to places where you have never been. You don’t know if it is habitable, or how many supplies they need!” As he spoke, a frustrated Elias, no longer hungry, brought his bowl over to his sink, the voice of his disappointment of a son following him. “All because you will not agree that you were wrong to send them! If there is a God, you have misinterpreted his will!”

Elias threw down the bowl into the sink hard enough that the metal rang. “What… did you say?” the holy man asked. His voice was dangerously low.

“Father, I…”

But Elias wasn’t listening. He grabbed a knife from the counter, and when he returned to the table to look at his son he held it ready in his hand. “What did you say?” he asked again in that dangerous tone.

Carlos’s eyes were wild. He had never seen his father this way before. Elias never did his dirty work himself. “What… what are are you doing, dad?” he asked. His father was annoyed with the way his son’s voice and lips trembled, showing his fear. That fear was empowering to Elias.

“You have blasphemed against God!” the priest growled. “You are no longer a son of mine, or of Adam. God casts you out… heathen!” Before his son could blink, Elias thrust the knife forward, sinking it deep into Carlos’s stomach. He could not even scream. The only thing that escaped from his lips was a grunt. He doubled over as Elias slipped the knife out, letting him collapse slowly to the floor in the weak gravity of the asteroid.

“No,” he gasped as blood started filling his mouth. He crumpled on the ground, the pain racking the whole of his being.

“I will do you a mercy you do not deserve,” Elias said calmly as he wiped the knife on his dying son’s shirt. “For this sin, the seed of your loins should be denied salvation as well… but I am not cold hearted. I have decided that Maria will be the first Eve,” he promised his son. “And I will make sure her Adam is one that will keep her in her place, one that will make up for your pitiful failures as a son and a parent.” Carlos was reaching for him, but Elias brushed his hand away. “I should have known when your wife killed herself after only fifteen years that you were worthless, that if she was that weak you were beyond redemption for yielding to her. I will make sure your daughter does not suffer the same fate.”

Father Elias walked back to the counter, calmly put the knife back, and picked up a tablet that listed all the men on the station. He sat down by the twitching, bleeding remains of his son and started planning which of the men he could marry his granddaughter to to ensure she would be the best Eve in the galaxy. It was only when the corpse finally stopped twitching that he called for his men to remove the body, and to bring his chosen Adam and Maria to his quarters.

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Three months later, the first of the Ark-Class colony ships launched. Supplied with enough food and water for years, and with their pair of colonists safely asleep, the ships rocketed off for the stars. Elias wasn’t particular in the destinations he chose… he picked stars within range more or less at random, letting God guide his hand to places where the new Gardens of Eden awaited the followers.

Rocket launches, however, were among the least subtle things in existence, and impossible to hide. By the second launch, the Human Expansionary Fleet had determined what the cult was doing. By the third, they had ships on the way. By the fourth, interception vectors had been found, mining operations in the Oort cloud had been notified, and warning was given. By the time all 24 of the first wave of ships were launched, the crimes of the cult of the Sons of Adam were being broadcast on every network in the solar system and they were in open rebellion against the Terran Federation.

The ships were propelled by fusion z-point drives that could burn nonstop for decades without requiring adjustment from the sleeping passengers… but they were not high impulse. While they could accelerate the ship up to about 20% of the speed of light, they didn’t get there quickly. Swift and skilled mobilization from the Human Expansionary Fleet managed to intercept most of the ships, saving the men and women sleeping aboard them from their almost certainly suicidal missions.

But only most of them. For the first four ships, they were just too slow… and even as HEF exploration and colonization efforts got underway in the next few years, four Ark-class vessels burned silently through the void, ever accelerating towards their destination.