Horns of the Ram (Dominion Book 2)

by Austin Rogers

  Her muscles clenched taut all over her body as she stood tall, the gaze of the Grand Lumis like the weight of a thousand worlds bearing down on her.

  Her reply came without thinking: “I won’t speak ill of Kastor, my lord, but I have high hopes as well.”

  The Grand Lumis cracked the slightest of smiles, a cryptic expression, then uncrossed his arms and leaned his fists against the touchdesk. His face descended back into joylessness.

  “These so-called ‘Defenders of Glory’ are a gift to our enemies,” the Grand Lumis said. “The bellicose elements in Carina would love to see Jerusalem fall. They’ve been searching for justification to annex Earth and the rest of the Confed’s systems for decades. These rebels—these terrorists—are on track to hand Carina that justification on a silver platter.” He eyed Larkin and Cristiana. “We cannot let them.”

  “With the Lagoon region as weak as it is,” the man named Aermo said, “losing the Confed as a buffer would emasculate us before Carina. It would make Fox vulnerable to invasion, and if they took Fox, they’d have isolated Trifid, Owl, and the Wings from our central corridor.”

  Cristiana bristled. “But Trifid, Owl, the Wings . . . they’re traitors. They betrayed you, my lord.”

  The Grand Lumis drew in a long breath and kept whatever he felt in check. “They are disloyal. Disobedient. For that, they must be punished. But they are still fellow noblemen.”

  “And we’d rather it be them that control those systems than the Carinians,” Larkin added.

  The Grand Lumis looked at his champion approvingly. “Indeed.”

  “His Excellency suspects foul play in Jerusalem,” Aermo said, circling back to the topic at hand.

  The Grand Lumis straightened. “I don’t believe these rebel ‘Defenders of Glory’ could have achieved what they have without foreign aid. I suspect that foreign aid is Carinian.”

  “What would you have us do, my lord?” Larking asked.

  “Assemble a team. Go to Earth. We are working with Terran officials to grant you clearance for descent to Jerusalem. I want you to find out who is aiding these Earthen rebels and take them out. And cripple the Defenders of Glory. You must ensure they lose the city, but make it look like a natural turning of the tide. Can I trust you two for this?”

  “Of course, my lord,” Larkin affirmed with zeal. He thumped his fist against his chest and gave a slight bow. “For the glory of the Regnum.”

  With a rush of excitement surging in her veins, Cristiana followed suit, pounding her fist over her heart and bowing. “For the glory of the Regnum.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Orion Arm, on the planet Earth . . .

  After hours uncomfortable car rides, waiting, and walking—all while handcuffed and blindfolded—one of Emma’s captors finally spoke two words in her language.

  “We’re here.”

  She heard a bolt crank inside a chamber and a heavy metal door moan deeply as it swung open. At this point, Emma was long past the stage of fear. Now she was simply curious. Where had they taken her? What did they think they could do with her or get from her?

  They guided her through a space she figured was the doorway, then the heavy door whined shut and locked with a mutedthunk. Feet shuffled around her. Soldiers greeted each other in their own languages.

  Then someone asked in Anglo: “Who is she?” He bore a slight lisp with his “S’s.”

  “I don’t know,” one of her captors replied. “Our ID system flagged her as a VIP.”

  The first voice took a step toward her and pulled off the blindfold. A short Arab man with glasses and a dense, black beard stood before her. He gave a nod of recognition once he saw Emma’s face.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “The Orionite.” He scrunched his eyebrows at Emma’s captors. “What took you so long to get here?”

  Emma glanced around at the dim, windowless nexus of drippy, pipe-laden, concrete tunnels. Probably underground. Flood lights on tripods illuminated the way down a few of the crate-lined corridors.

  One of her captors shook his head soberly. “It’s bad up there, Qasim. We had to weave around to stay away from the fighting.”

  “Are our people in good spirits?”

  Emma’s captor shrugged. “New orders come in so fast there’s no time to stop and think.”

  The bearded man—Qasim—nodded again. “Alright. Let’s go.” He looked at Emma. “Our advisor wants to speak with you.”

  Emma felt a twinge of fear. “Who is your advisor?”

  “You’ll see.” Qasim turned and started down one of the narrow, eerie tunnels.

  #

  They emerged from the dark, clammy, confined space into an open and well-lit chamber of concrete slabs slanted down from a set of storm drains high above. Light streamed in and warmly illuminated the area. Pipes protruded in places, spilling trickles of water down algae-laced rivulets leading to a trough running through the center of the room. The Defenders had laid sheets of wood and metal across the trough to go back and forth between tables crowded with computer screens. A dozen or so techy-looking Terrans paused their work and looked up at Emma, a few at a time.

  Qasim pulled a fold-out chair, its feet skidding across the ground, to one of the few pipes stretching up the concrete. He gestured at the chair politely, and Emma obliged him, sitting. His soft hands moved her handcuffed wrists close to the pipe. He fished a tiny key out of his pocket and glanced at her uncomfortably. Emma could tell he was different than the others—a gentle creature allied to much less gentle ones. He didn’t like this part of the job.

  Just before Qasim clicked open one of Emma’s cuffs, a deep voice called from the other side of the room: “Qasim!”

  It made the squat man flinch and turn around quickly. Inside a dim tunnel across the way, the silhouette of a tall, solidly built figure turned to face them.

  “She’s a businesswoman, not a soldier,” the resonant, refined voice said, carrying a peculiar accent. “Remove the shackles.”

  Qasim shrugged, let out a sigh, and took off the handcuffs. He turned to the silhouette and said, “She’s all yours.” In seconds, he had returned to his work station.

  The silhouette stepped forward and emerged from the shadows. Immediately, Emma realized where he hailed from. Standing close to two meters tall, muscle-bound like a silverback, skin clear as a cloudless sky, strong jawline accented by a few days’ worth of stubble, eyes gleaming and poised, lips tweaked upward at the edges in serene self-confidence. This was a Sagittarian nobleman. Emma had never ventured coreward enough to meet one before.

  “Thank you, Qasim,” he said in his distinct, high-class brogue. “Your men can go. I believe I should be able to handle her on my own.”

  Emma’s captors exchanged glances with each other and Qasim and, without any objection from him, headed back the way they came.

  Emma rubbed her wrists as the menacingly tall yet surprisingly youthful man approached. “That was your first mistake,” she said.

  He laughed under his breath, pulled up another fold-out chair, faced it toward her, and sat. Some of the intimidation factor faded. He examined her from behind dark, clever eyes. A black and white shemagh circled his neck, coming to ragged tassels around the edges. He could’ve almost passed for a local if not for his size and accent.

  “Emma Scarlet,” he said, as if recalling her name from a distant memory. “Welcome to our western command center.”

  Emma lifted her eyebrows. “You know who I am?”

  The Sagittarian shrugged. “I’ve done a little research since our men picked you up.”

  “Found anything interesting?” she asked.

  “Well, let’s see.” He leaned back. “Chief executive officer of a spacecraft manufacturing company called Halcyon, which happens to be a partner of the DDF. Graduated magna cum laude from the University of the Isles. Studied business management and art history. Lifelong resident of the city Apex on Agora. Philanthropist. Benefactor of several low-cost hospitals across the Comme
rce Islands. Lover of bizarre, twentieth century art. What else? Oh yes, of course. Also, a connoisseur of rosé wines.”

  Emma put on a smile to hide the discomfort at her lack of anonymity. “It’s only bizarre if you don’t know how to look at it.”

  The Sagittarian recoiled, amused. “Are you calling me uncultured?”

  “I’m saying you look like you belong in the trenches or the weight room,” she replied. “Not an art museum.”

  His complacent smile only grew. “Bold thing to say to the man who holds the fate of your life in his hands.”

  Emma shrugged. “Gallows humor, I guess.”

  “Gallows?” the Sagittarian repeated. “You’re not on the gallows, Emma. I have no intention of harming you.”

  She spread her hands. “Then what are your intentions for me?”

  He crossed his arms and scrutinized her. “I haven’t figured that out yet. But I have a sense about you. You’re going to be useful to me at some point, and until then I’m going to keep you safe.”

  Emma felt her hopes sag inside her at the thought of waiting. That would be worse than a quick death. She sighed, then began to inspect her new captor.

  “You know, you’re awfully cheerful for a military mastermind. Especially in the middle of a bloody conflict.”

  “Let’s just say . . . it feels good to get back to work.” A broad, bright smile spread across his cheeks.

  Something clicked in the back of Emma’s mind. “Get back to work . . .” This Sagittarian suddenly seemed vaguely recognizable. She’d read some news story involving a great warrior forced into an early retirement. It was odd, the article mentioned, because this warrior seemed to have a bright future in the Regnum’s upper echelon before being banished to some remote planet. Emma looked up and met his sharp eyes. “Who are you?”

  The Sagittarian glanced from side to side to indicate the others in the room. “My Terran associates just call me ‘Advisor.’” He leaned in close and whispered, “But you can call me Kastor.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Orion Arm, at the Carinian border . . .

  All quiet on theFossa.

  The door of Davin’s private room hung open, magnetically pinned to the inner wall. No music drifted in from the cockpit across the hermetically sealed ship. No voices bantered in the common room. No action movie blared on the big screen. No smoke alarms buzzed from overcooked meal packages.

  Nothing but the solemn, softly rattling hum of the airflow system.

  Pinned to his bed by straps over his chest and thighs, Davin stared up at the ceiling, fingers interlocked behind his head. A fidgety anxiousness roiled inside him, a steady, gnawing disease that just wouldn’t go away.

  The single mesh-covered speaker in the ceiling crackled to life.

  “Cap, we’re coming up on the exit gate. Couple more minutes and we’ll be in Carina.”

  The speaker went quiet. Davin started to wonder why she hadn’t just buzzed his nexband then remembered he’d turned it off to get some sleep. A lot of good that had done. He loosened the straps and floated out of bed. This little box, cluttered with scavenged knickknacks he’d collected over the years, stuck to the wall by magnetic putty, seemed like a good representation of his life. Lots of reminders of good memories, but no pictures of friends or family. How amazing could a blazer knife taken from an abandoned Sagittarian ship be if nobody but him was around to wonder at it? What good was a wall lined with rare gemstones and pendants and stuffed game animals someone else killed if Davin had no one to show it off to?

  He thought of Strange, but she didn’t count. Too hard to impress.

  From outside his door, he heard a harsh voice start barking what sounded like orders. He grabbed the doorframe on his way out to swing around. In the hall, he realized which room it came from—and what the voice was. Kiki floated in the middle of Jabron’s old room, holding on to the desk and tapping various keys on the keypad with a deep scowl. Jabron’s virtual trainer stood in front of a white backdrop on the screen, arms crossed and wearing sweat pants and a tank top. Sharebuck signs circled the headband around his virtual head.

  The trainer directed his unforgiving gaze at Davin. “Look at this scrawny-ass fool! You finally decide you’d like to fill out that shirt?”

  Kiki’s tapping turned to mashing. “I don’t know how to turn it off!”

  “Just turn off the—” Davin paused and looked down at himself. “Hey. I fill in this shirt just fine.” He flexed his pectorals and glanced back and forth between them.

  The trainer heaved an incredulous laugh. “If you think that’s what fillin’ out your shirt looks like, you got another thing comin’.” He curled his arms in front of his waist and flexed, making huge muscles bulge from his shoulders to his forearms. Then he stopped all of a sudden and took in a concerned look as he peered at Davin. “Hold up, you got a coupla strings hangin’ off your shirt.”

  Davin scanned himself. “Huh?”

  “Oh wait!” the trainer exclaimed. “Those are your arms!” He let out a raucous, gut-deep laugh.

  Davin rolled his eyes. “Alright. Turn him off. Bottom of the screen.”

  Kiki slid her fingers across the bottom edge of the screen until she found the buttons.

  The trainer started to object. “Did Isay you could turn me—”

  Then the screen blinked off. The silence was comforting. Davin felt the muscles in his shoulders relax. Kiki seemed less tense as well. She looked up and met his eyes with a curious expression.

  She pointed at a strip of metal attached to the wall by magnetic putty, a piece of scrap Bron had found in a wreckage years ago. Uniform, white letters had been painted on to read, “Property of” with “JABRON” sloppily covering the final word in ruby-red paint. It was the only decoration Bron had for his private room, unless the workout equipment counted.

  “Was he your friend?”

  Davin reached up and scratched the back of his neck. “Guess you heard what happened from Siraj?”

  Kiki nodded.

  “Yeah,” Davin said. “We were friends. Jabron was . . .” He wondered how to describe the guy. “We grew up on the same island on Agora. Flotsam. Ran in different circles. But then I scored this bad boy from a fire sale—” He patted the doorframe. “Had to assemble a crewpronto to get away from the loan sharks who fronted me the money. I needed a grease monkey, somebody who knew his way around an engine room. Bron just so happened to be a shuttle mechanic at the time. He jumped at the chance to get out.”

  Kiki pinched her eyebrows together and looked down, submerged in thought. “So many want to leave their home. I just want to protect mine.”

  “So do I,” Davin said. “But Flotsam’s not home to me.” He moved his eyes around the private room and hallway and hull. “This place is.”

  Kiki’s face remained hard and nonplussed, not seeming to comprehend how someone could think of this airtight metal box as home.

  The speaker crackled overhead. “Cap, we’re out the exit gate! Carinian gunships inbound. Get up here.”

  He grabbed a handhold outside the doorframe and swung himself out, into the common area. Kiki wasn’t long after him, kicking off solid surfaces toward the cockpit. Inside it, Davin clasped the top of the copilot’s chair, torqued himself around, and plunged himself into the seat. Strange chomped loudly and nervously on her gum, making her cheekbones and temples protrude. Out the windshield, this system’s star hung like a little, white nightlight in the deep distance. Shards of cold light reflected off the prickly surfaces of two gunships ahead.

  “Ernie’s ID tag better work,” Strange muttered. “Too late to turn back now.”

  “Well, they haven’t shot us yet.” Davin pulled the straps together over his chest and clipped in. “That’s a good sign.”

  Kiki stopped herself with the handlebars around the entrance tube. “Don’t we look suspicious? Orionite clipper in Carinian space. We’re out of place.”

  “We do clandestine supply runs for Tran . .
. Trans . . .” Davin paused and looked at Strange. “What was it? Tech Trans?”

  Strange closed her eyes and sighed defeatedly. “Oh, God.” She covered her eyes with her hand. “We’re screwed.”

  “TransTek!” Davin exclaimed, remembering. “That’s it. We do clandestine supply runs for TransTek. But we’redisguised as Orionite scavengers.”

  Strange clenched her teeth together and groaned warily. “We’re uber-screwed. Ultra-screwed. Mega-screwed.”

  “Simmer down,” Davin said. “We’re fine. These ID access codes are impossible to come by. They never get stolen.”

  “How do you know that?” Kiki asked.

  Davin half-turned to look up at her. “I just . . . I’m pretty sure.”

  Strange shook her head, still covering her eyes. “Super-screwed.”

  “Will you calm down?” Davin said to her.

  Strange uncovered her eyes to glare at him. “Cap, this is aterrible idea. It’s the worst idea in the history of ideas.”

  The dashboard emitted abeep-beep, and the vizchat request symbol pulsed on the copilot’s screen. Davin inhaled a deep breath, trying to suppress his own jitters, and swiped the end of his sleeve across the screen a few times to brush off some accumulated dust and lint. He tapped the vizchat symbol. A jut-jawed fellow with short-cropped hair and scrutinizing eyes answered. Same dark uniform with upraised collar and silver buttons as Davin had seen from the Abramists who’d captured Sierra.

  “Hello, travelers,” the officer said. “Lieutenant Dyson Corella, Carinian border security. I believe you must’ve gone through the wrong gate.”

  Davin cleared his throat. “Nope. Don’t know if you saw the tag. We’re headed back to TransTek.”

  “TransTek?” Lieutenant Corella said. “What is your business with them?”

  “Inter-arm operations,” Davin said, uttering words as they came to him. “We do supply runs to the Space Force’s . . . let’s say, non-public outposts in Orion.”

  Lieutenant Corella stared with a conflicted look. Good sign.