The Complete New Dominion Trilogy

by Drury, Matthew J.

  “What will happen to me?” Chen asked. She felt overwhelmed with uncertainty; the dissolution of the Church of Damarus, coupled with the current political and social changes that were going on across the world following his ‘disappearance’, and the loss of both Cris and Lenton, had created a spiritual vacuum inside her that would take some time to heal. She was yet to come to terms with the ideas and emotions involved with the whole experience, whilst worried about the uncertain and newly complicated future that seemed to lie ahead of her.

  Paramo took a deep breath. He wished he knew what to tell her. He didn’t want to let her know what would happen to her in the future, it just seemed wrong. Foreknowledge of your own death could only be a bad thing, he was sure. “The Admininstrator tells me that you will be given residency here, in the Silver City. Everything you need will be provided for you… and…” He leaned his face closer to hers. “I’ll feel more comfortable having you nearby. I have a job in mind for you once the provisional government has approved of my plan.”

  She nodded. “Thankyou, Paramo.” There was a hint of a smile on her lips, and her youthful innocence shined through her facial features. “I owe you everything.”

  “Nonsense, child,” he said. “You are the granddaughter of Doci Chen. You will always remain a close friend of mine.”

  A biomolecular doorway whispered open behind them, and Sai’bot appeared, looking frail and ancient. He was a shadow of the creature Chen had first known on Sirkhari, surely close to death now that he was without the rejuvenating presence of his supernatural master. “Lorelei Chen,” he croaked, frowning as he gazed upon her features. There was a hint of recognition in his eyes, but his aging, decrepit mind did not recall who she was. “The Administrator requests your presence immediately. If you would follow me, I will lead you to him.”

  She nodded, giving the creature a pitiful smile. “Very well.” She turned to Paramo and her arms wrapped around him in a pained embrace. He held her closely, feeling a deep remorse at what he knew would be her ultimate fate. Then he waved her off. “We’ll talk later, Lorelei Chen.”

  When she was gone, Paramo turned back to the window. Despite his honest respect for the young woman, he was a loner with his own agenda, and someone with her experience would prove very useful to him on the road ahead. He couldn’t tell her about her fate, because it could potentially compromise his plans. He regretted having to keep the knowledge a secret from her; indeed, it would haunt him until the very day he died, but it was a necessity.

  He had no choice.

  He stared at the horizon, at the rugged-looking mountain range he saw there, then frowned as several red dots appeared in the upper atmosphere and streaked across the sky like shooting stars. They were identical to the red dots he’d spotted aboard the Ballog some months earlier, in the presence of Queen Anacksu’namon. Beautiful, yet silent. He squinted his eyes, trying to determine what they were exactly, but they were gone in a matter of seconds. He blinked, then frowned again, as a whistling, haunting sound seemed to penetrate the air around him. It was a muffled piping sound, quite unlike any other sound he was familiar with.

  A moment later, it was gone.

  He chuckled to himself, shaking his head once. Perhaps he was finally going mad in his old age. He sighed, and turned from the window, stepping toward the doorway.

  Ammold Paramo held on to his fragile hopes, and tried to put Lorelei Chen out of his mind.

  BOOK II: VEIL OF THE EMPYREAL SUN

  ACT FOUR - THE FALLEN VEIL

  1

  202 ND

  SIRIUS SECTOR

  Darkness.

  Void.

  Space was the perfect place to hide. Cold, empty, and vast. Wild and untamed, unchecked. How appropriate then, that the target of this hunt had chosen to flee into the interstellar void beyond the boundaries of this ‘Sirius’ binary star system - beyond the range of all traditional detection methods.

  A sunrise corona lit one edge of the planet Nommon, setting its vast northern plains alight with a luxuriant glow. Viewed from space, the planet appeared as a lush and green jungle world, not unlike Earth, with a single vast ocean bisecting its two major continental landmasses.

  Two Nommos figures stood at the viewport of a large capital ship, deep in contemplation of the scene which unfolded before them. They were highly intelligent, amphibious sentient beings, more fish-like than human in appearance, with ctenoid scales running down their lower torsos which gave their aqua-blue flesh a rough texture. One of the figures was tall and gaunt, with a sloping domed forehead and sharp, aristocratic features scarred by many acts of devotion. These marks, and his cunningly wrapped head cloth, identified him as a Priest of the highest order. His companion was younger, broader, and so physically imposing that a first glance yielded no perceptible boundaries between armour and weapons and the warrior who wore them. He struck the eye in a single blow, leaving an indelible impression of a complex, living weapon. His countenance was sombre, and there was an intensity about him that suggested movement even though he stood at respectful attention.

  The priest, named Eldo Drakar, swept a three-fingered hand toward the scene below. “Dawn: bright death of mortal night,” he recited. The words were those of an ancient Nommos proverb, and there was genuine reverence in his eyes as he gazed upon the distant world. The young warrior, whose name was Irizon Albrem, touched two fingers to his forehead in a pious gesture, but his attention was absorbed less by the glowing vision of Nommon than by the battle raging above it.

  Silhouetted against the green world was the stolen capital ship Nephilim, which looked like a vast biomechanical skeleton floating in space covered in egg-like bumps. It looked to be nothing more than a lifeless rock formation, but in fact was inhabited by billions of Nommos beings and was an artificial world in its own right, containing whole ecosystems. The ship had been stolen by a terrorist faction known as the Empyreal Sun - and the innocent civilians aboard the ship were being held hostage against their will. As Eldo Drakar’s capital ship drew closer, he could make out the signs of battle - tiny fighters buzzing and flashing like fireflies, purple plasma bolts surging in a frantic, erratic pulse as the space forces of the Nommos Empire, together with their allies from the Terran Alliance, attempted to recapture the stolen ship and its precious cargo.

  “Our arrival is timely,” Drakar observed, glancing at the young warrior. They communicated using cranial vibrations on a frequency beyond the range of human hearing. “The target may escape into wild space, but we should be able to recover the Nephilim, at least; the ship has sustained too much damage to be capable of following him anywhere. Still, these terrorists seem determined to prove themselves a worthy adversary.”

  Irizon Albrem bowed slightly. “As you say, Eminence. But surely, if Xam Bahr is allowed to escape again, the Empyreal Sun will only bounce back to strike another day.” The target - Xam Bahr - was the leader of the Empyreal Sun, and one of the most wanted criminals in the entire Terran Alliance.

  Drakar nodded solemnly. “That remains a possibility. However, I have assurances from Warmaster Paramo that his team will succeed. I have entrusted these two… humans… with the capture of Xam Bahr. The success of their mission is still in the hands of the gods. But admittedly, it appears the battle is not going as well as anticipated. Perhaps not even as well as Paramo himself had predicted.”

  Albrem’s scarred forehead creased in a scowl. He himself held a dubious opinion of the Terran Alliance’s human Warmaster, Ammold Paramo. But the man’s past successes, which had led to this very confrontation, were many, and not to be lightly criticised. “I wish these cursed humans had never gotten involved with this affair. This is a Nommos concern.”

  “Such words veer dangerously close to treason, my young friend. You know how highly these humans are regarded by the Emperor.”

  “Truth is never treason,” Irizon Albrem stated.

  Lord Damarus is dead.

  Cris is gone.

  These thoughts reso
unded through Lorelei Chen’s benumbed senses, echoing through an inner silence as profound as that of the watchful stars.

  These thoughts drowned out the sounds of battle, and the frantic, running commentary of her co-pilot as they struggled to fly the damaged Ravana—class Nommos bioship. Like her companion, Chen was battered and filthy from several long days of field work, and from a battle that had lasted too long and cost too much. She sat perched on the edge of a too-large Nommos gunner’s chair, firing missiles at the flood of enemy fighters all around them, as they pursued Xam Bahr and the stolen capital ship toward wild space.

  Chen watched with a strange sense of detachment as the alien ship released plasma at her command, as the death of enemy vessels and their terrorist pilots was painted in brief, brilliant splashes against the dark canvas of space. All of this was a fever dream, nothing more, and Chen was merely a character caught in her own nightmare.

  Cris is gone.

  Ten long years had passed, but it still didn’t seem possible. It wasn’t possible. Cristian Stefánsson was alive. He had to be. Her future self had told her there would be a way to prevent this… to prevent everything. She still believed it.

  Her thoughts tumbled like an aircraft in an out-of-control spiral. Her pilot instincts kicked in, and she eased herself out of the spin, cursing to herself. Despite the passage of time and everything that had happened since, she had never recovered from the loss of Cris: there was a hole in her heart as unfathomable as space. She went deep within, frantically seeking the place within her that had always been his. Cris was gone. Lorelei Chen did not feel bereft, but sundered.

  A burst of plasma flared toward the ship. Chen responded with one of her own. It streamed toward the incoming plasma bolt like a vengeful comet. The two missiles met like waves from opposing oceans, causing sprays of bright plasma into the darkness.

  Seated beside her, Machiko Famasika threw herself to one side, straining the umbilical tissues of her Rãvier suit in her attempt to pull the ship aside from the killing spray. The petite blond girl gritted her teeth and roared under the g-force, her symbiotic exoskeleton unable to compensate in time. Fortunately for them, the enemy fighters were also forced to turn aside. This bought them a moment of relative peace - no immediate danger, no obvious target.

  Chen twisted in her seat until she could see the capital ship, the Nephilim, behind them. As she did so, Machiko caught her gaze - and couldn’t help but feel her anguish. Chen blinked. The bond between Lorelei Chen and Machiko Famasika was different than that she had once shared with Cris, but perhaps no less intense. The realisation hit her heavily, without subtlety. Lora and Machiko. How strange - and yet it felt right and perfect.

  Tears filled Chen’s eyes, refracting an incoming streak of molten purple into lethal rainbows. In the pilot’s seat, Machiko muttered a curse and wrenched the ship’s nose up and hard to port. The alien ship rose in a sharp, gut-wrenching arc. Plasma scorched along the vessel’s underside, sheering off the irregular biological nodules with a shrill, ululating screech.

  Chen jerked her left hand up and fisted away her tears, concentrating on the task at hand, commanding the ship to release a burst of plasma at the attacking fighter - an instant before it launched a second plasma. Chen’s missile struck the enemy fighter in that minuscule interval between shielding and attack. Shards of black chitinous biomass exploded from its hull, and the snout heated to an ominous red as molten blast washed over it. Cracks fissured through the enemy pilot’s viewport.

  Again Chen fired, and again, timing the attacks with skill honed through eight long years and too many missions. The enemy fighter vanished in a ball of fire.

  “Xam Bahr has now entered the interstellar void,” Machiko said, the soft tones of her voice barely audible over the thrum and groans of the abused ship. “If we don’t follow him, he will escape.” Her fingers moved deftly over the organic control console, confirming the sensory impulses that flowed to her through her Rãvier suit.

  Chen frowned. “We promised Paramo we’d capture him this time.”

  Suddenly, the shriek of warning alarms seared through the air. Several plasma bolts streamed toward them, converging on the underside of the ship - apparently, the enemy’s favoured target. Empyreal Sun fighters had moved into position aft and above, and others were closing in from below and on either side. Another ship came straight on, still at a distance but closing fast.

  No matter what they did, they could not evade the disabling barrage that followed.

  Machiko held course, flying straight toward the incoming plasma bolts, determined to pursue Xam Bahr past the boundaries of the Sirius star system. At the last possible moment, she threw the vessel into a fast-rolling spiral. The plasma flurry skimmed along the whirling ship, not dealing much damage to any one part. When the scream of plasma grating against biomatter ceased, she fought the ship out of the roll and kept heading straight toward the comet-heavy Oort cloud at the very edge of Sirius A’s gravitational dominance - the point where any ship’s conventional sensors would become completely useless in a game of cat-and-mouse, such as this was.

  “Lora, clear me a path,” she shouted.

  Chen hurled plasma at the Nahema—class fighter directly in their path, then released a missile. Her timing was perfect, and the ship dissolved in a brief, bright explosion.

  Machiko quickly diverted power to the front shield, and instinctively flinched away as a spray of biomass debris clattered over the hull. She glanced sideways over her shoulder in Chen’s direction. “We’re coming up on the Oort cloud. I hope you’re ready for this, Lora.”

  The Ravana—class bioship gave an uncertain shudder as it emerged into the expanse of the Oort cloud, a vast ocean of frozen comets composed of various ices - water, methane, ammonia - only loosely bound to the gravitational pull of the Sirius A star. Machiko Famasika turned her attention to the scan readouts, showing the composition of the frozen debris, and the position of Xam Bahr’s ship on the other side of the cloud some three hundred Astronomical Units away.

  “He’s gained too much ground,” she moaned, considering their options. “Our engines can’t match his. We’ll never catch him…”

  Lorelei Chen grimaced. She noted a blip showing on her own readout, disengaging from behind one of the nearby ice comets and moving out behind them. She didn’t think too much of it at first, until she realised it was another ship. “We’ve got company,” she observed.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Machiko said, and she dived the bioship forward, pulling a fast circuit over and around a nearby comet, then diving out fast to the side, rolling about a spinning boulder, and cutting fast between another pair. In and around she wove, with no apparent pattern, and a few moments later, Chen, who was still studying her readout, announced, “They’re gone.”

  “Maybe they were smarter than we thought and headed back to the battle,” Machiko said with a grin and a wink. Even as she finished, though, her own scanner beeped.

  “He’s back,” Chen frowned.

  “Hang on!” Machiko said, and she put the Ravana—class ship through a wild series of dips, climbs, and turns, then finished with a straight-out run, while Chen fired off a missile or two. But then she gasped as the forward viewscreen filled up with an ice comet.

  Machiko was already on it, turning the vessel on its end and running up over the giant frozen rock. “That was close,” she breathed. Her declaration was accentuated by a sudden flash and a jarring buck as the missiles detonated far behind them. A moment later, the enemy fighter streamed over and past them.

  Chen opened fire with a flurry of plasma bolts, tracing lines all about the enemy craft - a Hecate—class stealth bomber - which cut a snap-roll to the right and down. Machiko stayed with him, trying to line up another shot, but the pilot was good, snap-rolling one after another, each time coming out near a comet and sliding behind it for cover. She snorted, pushing the ship into a fast dive, then a sudden turn back up. Another sudden roll and bank to the right had the
enemy moving behind yet another comet, but this time, instead of following, Machiko cut in short of the rock and Chen fired blindly past it. Out came the enemy fighter, right into the line of fire, and the ship bucked, pieces flying, exploding as a plasma bolt slammed into it.

  “Nice shot, Lora,” Machiko smiled, giving her another wink.

  The ice comets rolled along their silent way, undisturbed, seemingly unshaken from the explosions and zigzagging vessels.

  “Thanks,” Chen said, “but I’m afraid it was a diversion on the enemy’s part. Check the sensors. I think Xam Bahr got away. Can we trace his trajectory?”

  Machiko shook her head. “No. No, no. We’re too far into the Oort cloud now. The sensors have gone haywire.”

  Chen muttered a curse under her breath. “Then it’s too late. He probably activated his Alcubierre-Sel’varis Drive by now and could be anywhere.” She shook her head, feeling disappointed with herself. “We’ve failed the mission, Machiko. Paramo is not going to be happy with us.”

  With a nod, Machiko sighed heavily, turning the ship about. “Since when, my dear, has the great Warmaster ever been happy with us?”

  2

  The Terran Alliance space fleet hung poised in space, weary from the fight. The battle was over, and the Nephilim, at least, had been recovered - the Empyreal Sun beaten into a hasty retreat. Now, it would be up to the forces of the Nommos Empire to take over here. Capital ships changed in formation from corner to side, flanked by dreadnoughts and fighters, creating a faceted diamond shape to the armada - as if, like a cobra, the fleet was spreading its hood.

  Lorelei Chen watched from the viewport of the battered Ravana—class bioship as Machiko moved them into position, pondering what the escape of Xam Bahr would mean for everyone involved here. Not just her and Machiko, and the fleet, but everybody in the Terran Alliance, from the scavenging nomads of Earth’s hostile Shadowlands, to the Deep Core mining colonists of Wolf 359 in the distant reaches of the Alliance’s territory. The man’s escape was bad news to them all, and a serious setback to Paramo’s plans. She clenched her jaw, nostrils flared, as the implications poured through her mind.