The Rise of The Dominion: A Dominion War novel

by D. M. Marshall

  He felt Necron fight to resist his call. Nordin frowned. Though he was alone he felt the presence of others, Edo, very close by. Here? Only he had the power and the ambition to step into the Astral plane. They seemed to be calling to him. He grew angry. Were they trying to stop him from destroying Necron? Why? He spun around but could see nor feel anyone nearby. He concentrated harder Channeling Deeper.

  The voices came again, whispering words too faint to hear clearly. Their whispering sounded urgent. No! He would not be stopped. Holding his arms out to his sides, he sent waves of red Astral lightning cascading away from him in all directions. The lightning swaggered brutishly all around him, for hundreds of meters in every direction. His eyes blazed red. The sound from such colossal energy output seemed to cleave the plane in two. He grinned savagely, for none could oppose the might of Val Nordin. He was not Edo, nor Skave. He was both, Edo and Skave, combined synergistically into an entity many times more powerful than either part alone.

  He let the lightning dwindle away. His hands pulsed painfully from his efforts and with the merest of effort he used the High Astral energy to replenish himself. It helped to calm his mind and the voices grew clearer, more insistent. He could make out some words.

  “Val… up… must…”

  He strained harder, determined that nothing would deny his will.

  “Mushur, hear me. You must awaken.”

  The voice sounded familiar, but Nordin couldn’t quite place it, which annoyed him. Awaken? He was already awake. Angry, he used Channeled furiously to shout back at the voice.

  “Who are you? Leave me be or face my wrath!”

  “Mushur Nordin, it is I, Dical Dimerchi, one of your new Paladins. You are unconscious. I am reaching you via the Astrals. You must wake up!”

  Nordin screwed his face up. What was this deception? Yet the name was familiar, as was the term the Paladins. He looked about him. It seemed so real. How could he be dreaming?

  “Why must I wake up?”

  “Your Nebula fighter was hit, knocking you out. We are protecting you but our shields are failing. Wake up!”

  What Dimerchi said rang true but he had no recollection of being in a Nebula fighter. He considered. If he was dreaming then he should be able to direct his dream, once aware. Memories came to him of events that were somehow in the future. Some of them terrible.

  He felt Necron draw near and then he emerged from the mist, tall and dark and savage. Val lifted his arms to unleash his lightning but Necron was on him, grasping his arms, burning them where he held them. Necron’s face was a void with no ending but as it loomed over Val Necron screamed.

  “Wake up, or die!”

  Raichel Ison looked out of her Delta Mark 4’s multifaceted cockpit viewport and watched the swarm of fighters swarming down from the group of Battleships above them. It was not a pleasant sight. She chinned her comms device.

  “Riccard, I need you to broadcast a message to the home fleet. Ask them to divert what they can to assist us - we need all the help we can get.”

  “Leave it to me, Raichel,” he replied, crackling with heavy interference due to the battle waging around the planet.

  Her Mark 4 Delta was a formidable fighter, with its armament of six laser cannons and two plasma torpedo launchers. It was also very fast and agile, being thirty percent faster than a standard Delta fighter. The ship also had capital class shield generators to defend it from energy attacks and its hull and wings were very tough, protecting it from matter impacts. One on one it was a match for almost any other single fighter in the galaxy. Unfortunately for Raichel and her group, they only had four of them, and she couldn’t count the number of the quasi-Zhur Thoggu Delta fighters that were inbound. Also, whilst Brams’ yacht was very well defended it was not particularly agile or fast and so it would be a sitting Muundon against the onslaught.

  She had no choice.

  “Everyone, back down to the planet. We’re going to make this as difficult as we can for them until help arrives.” If it arrives. “Tighten formation around the yacht.”

  Clicks and a quick Aye-aye from Kaliko came in reply and Raichel rolled her agile ship over onto its starboard side before peeling away down back towards Disthasus.

  “Under fire,” said Jake Bulver over the comms.

  “Copy that,” Raichel replied, “divert weapons to rear shields and don’t forget to expand your shield inertial compensators once they get in close enough to use their Queylam, or whatever it is they have that is generating the N-spheres against us.”

  A Delta fighter roared past, strafing the yacht as it went. Its hull was encrusted with Ulorbana nanite steel, though its swept-forward wings were standard, presumably because the Ulorbana would have affected their performance in non-vacuum situations. It broke to port to begin angling round for another run. Raichel had to resist the temptation to break formation and go after the fighter. Being where she was, overlapping their shields with Brams’ yacht, was the best defense they had until the made it down to the city. Even then, with the yacht poor maneuverability they could not hope to shake off their attackers, merely position themselves close to building to block as many angles of attack as they could, to extend the time they could protect the yacht. It was a dangerous game they were playing, but Raichel couldn’t see any other option.

  They approached Disthasus with more and more enemy craft sniping at them. Even out front with Gil, Raichel’s shield were taking a pummeling.

  “Shields are nearly down,” commented Calista Flores grimly.

  “Copy, Calista. You and Jake take lead, Gil and I will drop back to cover.”

  “Thanks, Raichel,” replied Flores gratefully.

  “Any news on your reinforcements, Riccard,” asked Raichel as her ship bucked violently from a particularly accurate shot. “If they’re much longer then they might as well not bother.”

  “Sorry, Raichel, I haven’t had any confirmations of assistance. I think they have their hands full.”

  Raichel slapped at her thigh, frustrated. If they weren’t going to get any assistance then they had to come up with a new plan, and quickly. Problem was she couldn’t think of anything. If they headed straight for space then either their shields wouldn’t last or the flotilla of ships above would make orange dumplings out of them. If they stayed here then eventually their shields would give way. Things seemed desperate.

  “Blast it,” swore Gil, “shields are almost out. I’m diverting all power to shields, dropping speed.”

  “Hold it together Gil,” she urged.

  Using the Astrals, she sent out a plea for help to all who could hear her. Help us.

  Doyen Amos Weststar sat in the ready room of his Disthasus residency, watching the battle unfurl on his TACCOM screens. He was feeling uncommonly satisfied. He took a slow, leisurely and indulgent sip of his brandy and basked in his own glory. Disthasus’s shields were down and once the cowardly and soon to be ex-High Doyen was dealt with the process to assume control of the Dominion would begin.

  He’d already been in communication with his many supporting Doyens, either personally or via his aides, and everything was set. He had been very happy to see the ships sent by the Doyens side with Adami rather than Brams, confirming the support he had from the Dominion’s upper echelon. How his fortunes had turned around since his and Adami’s defeat at the hands of Jase Ison. He would so enjoy seeing the look on the face of Ison when he informed him of his wife’s untimely demise.

  Brams and his pet Edo were flying above him right now, hounded by Adami’s ships. It did not look good for them. What a shame, he thought, smiling beatifically.

  Weststar hadn’t heard from Doyen Niettha since their last confrontation. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or bad. It pleased him how little he and Adami had needed to rely on Niettha’s support during the assault - it looked as though his vessels wouldn’t be needed at all. A most enjoyable result, indeed. Once he was ruling the Dominion he would need to have a quiet conversation with Pet
rina regarding their volatile accomplice. Perhaps Niettha’s usefulness was at an end, and given the Doyen’s attempts to affirm dominance over him it was none too soon. Even if Weststar didn’t have any pet Edo he did have plenty of credits, enough to pay for a hundred bounty hunters. Perhaps even Slaven Kan himself.

  He took another sip of his drink. Emperor Weststar. It sounded so delightful.

  Edo Mushur Val Nordin jerked awake, the vision of his brother transforming into the Astral entity Hastuthu leaving him with a pounding heart. The left side of his forehead hurt and the vision out of his left eye was blurred. He ran through a quick Edo calming technique as his orange X4 unit, detecting his return to consciousness, squawked and tooted at him.

  “Yes, yes. I’m awake,” Val grunted, guessing at what the robot was saying. He pressed his comms device. “Anyone reading me?”

  “Val! It’s Dical. Senoch and I are shielding you whilst the Gladiators try and defend us but we need to get moving, our shields are barely holding. Is your ship maneuverable?”

  “One moment.” Nordin checked his status board and noticed with some alarm that engine three was red, along with laser three and the port plasma torpedo launcher. Engine four seemed to be damaged but holding at seventy four percent efficiency. He quickly ramped the other two engines down to match that one in order to keep his Nebula fighter maneuverable.

  “My wings are clipped but I can move. Please tell me you got the one that shot me?”

  “Confirmed kill by Lee Gaspara,” replied Senoch Gray, still sounding calm and dutiful.

  “Glad you’re back with us, Val, and you’re welcome,” said Lee. “Now can we get out of here, it’s way past my bedtime.”

  “Please don’t make me read you a bedtime story again,” said Shawn Moller.

  Val gingerly fed power into the engines and took off, immediately going into random evasive rolling and twisting acrobatics. His two Edo wingmen kept up easily but their antics did help keep them from being hit as Lee and his pilots continued their efforts to keep the enemy fighters off them.

  Val checked his scanners and found that the planetary shield was down, as was the Disthasus one, noting that they must have dropped while he was unconscious. Given the state of his ship, he deliberated over the need to withdraw. The fleet battle looked decidedly one-sided, with the home fleet drawing closer and closer together as they took further loses. Three of the home fleet Battleships were out of action and more than half of those remaining had taken significant damage. It looked unlikely that a group of Nebula fighter would be able to make much difference to the outcome.

  “Val, we need to go, our luck is only going to hold out so long,” said Raif Ko over the comms.

  Being ordered around by Ko irritated him. Who was he to tell me what to do? The man couldn’t even lift a pebble through Channeling.

  Val chinned him comms button. “Negative, we do what we can until we’re either we’re dead, or they’re dead.”

  “Mushur Nordin,” began Shepherd, but then broke off as they all felt the call sent out by Raichel Ison. Val checked his scanners and then felt out towards the small group of ships that seemed to be the origin point of the call. He felt their Astral sensitivity and the familiar feel of Raichel’s mind.

  “Gladiators, we just had received a plea for assistance from Raichel Ison, I’ll ID their ships now. Let’s move.” Val finished marking up Raichel’s ships and then tipped his Nebula over onto its starboard wings and then peeled away, bringing him on a direct course towards Raichel. His two wingmen matched his maneuver as Lee and the others followed as best as they could.

  “I’m trying to establish direct ship to ship comms,” said Senoch Gray.

  Val could see Raichel’s problem. They were vastly outnumbered and seemed to be escorting a pleasure yacht of some kind, presumably with someone important in it. That important someone would almost definitely be Riccard Brams, trying to escape the invasion. They had sensibly taken to using the cityscape as an extra defense but they would need to pull something pretty special out of the bag if they were going to be able to survive.

  “Communications established, patching through to group comms,” said Gray.

  “Val?” came Raichel’s strained voice.

  “We’re here Raichel, a whole team of Edo and Gladiators to save your hide. We’re on our way.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “but even if we can deal with the fighters we’re still trapped by the Battleships overhead.”

  He looked again at his scanners. She was right. There were enough ships for them to be positioned high enough to both cover every direction and also to reposition quickly enough should the try to fly to another part of the planet. They’d have to fight their way through, but the yacht just wasn’t quick enough to be able to dodge direct fire from Battleships. They would be able to destroy the ship easily.

  “Leave them to me. Do not hesitate once Ko and the others are with you, take the most direct route and escape.”

  “What are you going to do, Val?” asked Raichel, obviously concerned.

  “What needs to be done,” he said. Val changed comms channel back to the one for his flight and the Gladiators.

  “Dimerchi, Gray, with me. Ko, Shepherd, Lee, continue on and assist Mushur Ison. I would only slow you all down, anyway.”

  “Mushur Nordin,” warned Nate Shepherd.

  “Save it, Shepherd,” said Nordin, becoming irritated again. “We don’t have time to debate this - we’re not in a Conclave meeting now.”

  Nordin broke to port and realigned his Nebula fighter until it was pointing up and away from the planet, bringing the battle into view, to starboard. From this distance, the torrents of laser fire and streams of superheated plasma tore across space were tiny thin beads coming from small star-like ships that glinted with reflected light or blossomed with explosions. Nordin could feel how fearful the military men were on both sides, and how determined each were. It was a shame each faction was fighting the other, together they would have been a formidable foe for any other civilization in the galaxy. Instead they continued to pound away at each other, with the Zhur Thoggu technology of the invading side continuing to win the war of attrition. Their Ulorbana nanite steel boosted defenses enabled them to soak up so much more damage than the Imperial home fleet ships could.

  Ahead of him were the group of ships tasked with dealing with Brams. Four enormous but misshapen Hellfire class-IV Battleships waited overhead, with two dozen various cruiser size and smaller escort craft spread out around them. Their fighters were already down on the planet, with only a single wing of standard Delta fighters left to defend the Battleships from fighter attack. It was clear that they wanted Brams captured or worse very dearly indeed.

  What you want isn’t always what you get, thought Nordin bitterly. He thought again of his brother, and of his parents, all of them now dead because of the Dominion. He opened himself to the Astral plane, Channeled with the Deep, and directed his mind out towards the awaiting Battleships.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tomasa Iwu sat waiting within the large reception room of the Premier’s Suite, high up in the Council Building. Premier Carver had already kept him waiting for over half an hour, and the flurry of alarmed-looking government workers streaming in and out of the inner offices was hardly abating. He pretended to look at the ornate tapestries that lined the walls of the room but knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. To her credit, the attractive yellow-skinned Dromulgurchin receptionist who sat behind her impressively ornate desk kept apologizing for keeping him and the three other appointees waiting. One of them, a Pemapaani with yellow flecked black fur, huffed and puffed angrily, clearly displeased with being made to wait. Clearly something serious had occurred, so Iwu remained calm and worked on what he would say to Olsen Carver.

  A short while later the receptionist ushered him through the grand double doors and then another assistant escorted Tomasa through to The Chief’s office. Carver was waiting just inside the door and took Iwu�
�s hand as he entered.

  “Mister Iwu, please accept my apologies for keeping you waiting.” Carver looked genuinely sorry. Dressed in one of his de facto bland suits Carver hardly looked capable of running as large a republic as the Commonwealth but Iwu knew that from an economic standpoint the Commonwealth was rapidly improving under his governorship.

  ‘Absolutely not a problem, Premier. I am grateful to you for having agreed to meet me. Has something happened that I should be aware of?”

  Carver paused, considering. One of his hands moved to his moustache briefly. “I guess it will become public knowledge soon enough. There has been an attack against the Imperial Dominion. Some of our contacts on Citadel were able to get word out before communications were lost. If reports are to be believed the attacking ships were equipped with Zhur Thoggu technology.”

  Tomasa was momentarily lost for words. No wonder the delay and general chaos. A hundred questions leapt to mind, all no doubt already pondered by Carver and his staff.

  “I see. I will try and make this short then.”

  Olsen smiled, “I appreciate that, Mister Iwu.”

  Iwu tried to regain his composure. “I would dearly like you to be a witness for the defense in Mushur Okarachebe’s trial.”