The Complete New Dominion Trilogy

by Drury, Matthew J.

  Back on Earth, in their home city of Tharasika of the Eighth Faction, J’Onn had embezzled money from his employer and been caught. The choice was simple: execution or exile on Proserpina. Like thousands of other petty criminals in similar situations, J’Onn chose to became a homesteader on Proserpina’s Rhino Colony.

  A once-fertile planet orbiting Proxima Centauri just 4.2 light years from Earth, Proserpina had been the site of the very first Extrasolar Colony established by Earth’s Deep Space explorers, way back in the twenty-third century - after a period of prosperity and peace following the bloody Bellum Sacrum wars. The onset of the New Dominion Era, and the establishment of the Holy Church, saw humanity’s initial colonisation efforts among the stars - starting right here, with Earth’s closest neighbour. A mass migration, eventually dubbed the ‘Second Exodus’, was responsible for the depopulation of much of Earth, with many humans spreading to what became 100 inhabited colonies within 80 light years of the home world, ruled by the iron hand of Lord Damarus from his Sacred Palace. As the repression and tyranny of the Holy Church grew unchecked over the next century, the Alliance Parliament became riven with factionalism, leading to the diversification of the Twelve Factions that existed today - which eventually led to the Resistance Movement and Lord Damarus’ downfall.

  After two centuries, the Rhino Colony on Proserpina had decimated the forests, exhausted the mines, and destroyed the ecosystem by farming with the aid of chemical toxins that had long ago been outlawed elsewhere in the galaxy. Now, apart from an extremely brief Spring season here in the western hemisphere, Proserpina was effectively a global desert, and the starving colonists had fashioned homemade weapons in order to fight one another for dwindling resources. In a blindingly short time, there was no more water for irrigation. Crops failed, and J’Onn’s wife, Za’ara, seemed to wither with them. There was no money for Aias fluid or any other type of medical treatment. Because of J’Onn’s crime, she could not return home to her family for help unless she divorced and renounced him. That she would not do, though J’Onn had pleaded tearfully for her to do so.

  She had died last night, hours before dawn, and J’Onn had stumbled outside, dazed by grief, unaware of himself or his surroundings, only of his loss. It was midmorning before he came to himself and saw the dozens of fresh holes he’d apparently drilled the night before in his feverish search for water. By then the obsession had hold of him, and he could not stop. With both Za’ara and the land gone, there was nothing left. He was vaguely aware that he intended to drill until he found water or died of heatstroke. Considering the harsh afternoon sun, he reasoned he had an excellent chance of accomplishing the latter. He had already stopped perspiring.

  J’Onn ran a hand across his forehead; it felt cool and dry. His thoughts were beginning to drift randomly. Soon would follow disorientation, convulsions… death. He let the auger slip from his hands and closed his eyes. Already the delusions had started; he imagined he heard a sound in the far distance, in the direction of the storm. A low, monotonous piping sound.

  The sound seemed to grow steadily, unmistakably louder, as if it were moving closer. Mildly curious, J’Onn opened his eyes.

  A naked man emerged from the storm, shouting something at him.

  The sight of the man made him gasp and struggle to his feet. The stranger walked like one possessed, swinging his arms by his sides, making no attempt to conceal his modesty. His eyes were squinted against the duststorm, and the sand seemed to flare out behind him like the wings of an avenging angel. Or a demon.

  “Hey!” The stranger shouted. “Hey there!”

  The man came closer. Clearly, his destination was the very patch of ground where J’Onn now stood. A thread of awe and fear penetrated J’Onn’s grief. Because of them - or perhaps because of the force of experience, which had long ago taught him to expect ill of strangers - J’Onn scrambled for the weapon lying next to him. A handmade pipe gun, with stones for projectiles. It was not reliably lethal, but it was the only protection he had.

  A moment later, the man was standing right before him. He and J’Onn studied each other tentatively. The stranger’s face was coated in sand; his eyes were shadowed, yet somehow J’Onn perceived that they were extremely intelligent, full of a strange, disconcerting brilliance.

  Still clutching the pipe gun, J’Onn gaped at the tall and well-muscled naked man until, at last, he spoke. “Where am I? What is this place?”

  J’Onn should have shot him then, but something held him back. The man was surely drunk, or under the effects of Mindflood. His voice became soft, full of knowing sympathy. “This is Rhino Colony,” he told the man. “On Proserpina. Are you all right? Where are your clothes?”

  “I… I don’t know,” the man answered feebly. “I don’t remember what happened to me. I… I woke up here, in the desert.” He shook his head.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Cris,” the man said. “Cristian Stefánsson.” He collapsed under the weight of his grief, his exhaustion, his fear. He was dimly aware of J’Onn approaching him and draping a dusty rag over his back… and of the sound of his own sobbing.

  “Damarus fucking Christ,” J’Onn cursed. “You’d better come with me.” He reached a hand forward to assist Cris to his feet. His grasp hinted at great physical strength.

  Overwhelmed with gratitude, Cris Stefánsson struggled to express himself. “Thank… Thankyou.” He was hollow-cheeked, unshaven, uncombed, yet there was handsomeness to his rugged, even features. And those eyes - those eyes were startling, full of a piercing brightness that J’Onn found awe-inspiring and slightly frightening.

  “I will take you to the Viscount,” J’Onn said, nodding to himself, and led him toward the manmade structures of town.

  16

  EARTH TOWER ONE

  The news report on the holographic screen flickered with a constant stream of images capturing the death and destruction an Empyreal Sun attack had wrought upon the Gliese Colony in the constellation Hercules, on the very outskirts of the Terran Alliance’s borders - 80 light years from Earth. Bodies of colonists were strewn haphazardly about the settlement in the aftermath of a very one-sided battle. Entire sections of the mining facility had been reduced to scorched, twisted metal and rock. Melted, blackened chunks of debris that had once been ships of the Alliance fleet sent to defend the colony floated aimlessly through the clouds of the Serpent Nebula - an asteroid belt born from the bloodshed and carnage.

  Machiko Famasika watched the report with a feeling of apprehension. Work had already begun to rebuild and repair the colony, but the repercussions of the unprovoked attack went far beyond the widespread physical damage. In the weeks since the Easesash Stone had been stolen, every major media outlet across the Terran Alliance had been dominated with the graphic - and previously unthinkable - images of no less than eight such attacks: all colonies along the Alliance’s border near to the galactic centre wiped out in a similar manner. No survivors were left.

  Eight attacks in five weeks. This unashamed barbarism from the Empyreal Sun had shaken the Alliance to its very core, stripping away their naïve sense of invincibility. Tens of thousands of lives had been lost so far; all of Alliance space was in mourning.

  Machiko was nervous, but wasn’t scared. When the Easesash Stone went missing, she knew that it would eventually come to war. It was inevitable. The Empyreal Sun had the Xeilig Ark now, of that there was no doubt. And somehow, it had given them an advantage here. War was coming. These attacks were only the beginning.

  Paramo’s voice called to her over the communications system. “Machiko, can you join us in the Warmaster’s Chamber? There’s something you should see.”

  She nodded, and whispered gently to the holographic screen. A signal was transmitted to Paramo, and the screen disappeared. “I’ll be right there.”

  What did it all mean?

  Ammold Paramo looked out of the great window that spanned the northern wall of the Warmaster’s Chamber, watching an all-too-fa
miliar cluster of red stars as they traversed their way across the expanse of space beyond the curvature of the planet Earth, impossibly fast, and disappeared toward the constellation Centaurus. He took a deep breath and pointed a finger toward them.

  “There. Do you see it?”

  “My God,” Machiko whispered reverently. “You were right. I can’t believe it.” Awestruck, she stepped forward and rested her hand on an ivory-like railing. For a moment she stared, mesmerised by the sight before them. Then the red stars were gone, as quickly as they came. She looked away, moved. Her mind could not accept what had just happened… and yet her heart accepted it gladly. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

  It was not an empty question. “I suppose I was going to tell both of you eventually,” Paramo said, sighing heavily. “But I had kept it to myself for so long, I had grown accustomed to the secrecy.” He gave Lora a knowing glance. “Besides which, I was never really sure if it was just an illusion, until recently. Look, there it is again…”

  Lorelei Chen watched the red stars as they repeated their journey, starting and disappearing in the exact same places. Since their mysterious private ‘visit’ from the dusty apparition of Cristian Stefánsson some weeks earlier, the appearance of the ‘crimson stars’ had increased in frequency, until now they were almost constantly moving across the sky, as if luring them to a destination in space. “It’s happening all the time now. We had to let you in on this, Machiko. But you understand why we didn’t mention this before.”

  She nodded, and looked at Paramo. “You said the first time they appeared, you were with Queen Anacksu’namon…”

  “Yes, just before the Battle of Laputa, more than ten years ago,” Paramo said. “But since then, you two are the only others I know of who have actually seen this phenomenon. I have attempted to point them out to other people over the years… but have always been met with sceptical derision - until now. I simply learned not to mention it.”

  “Are we dreaming?” Machiko’s voice shook with emotion as she stared at the vision of the stars. They were beautiful, silent, mysterious. “Why haven’t I seen them before?”

  “If we are dreaming,” Chen replied, “then life itself is a dream.”

  Of the three, Machiko seemed the most stunned by what they were witnessing. Her usual mask of self-control had vanished; she half frowned in open amazement at what was transpiring beyond the curved observation window. “Well, I am at a loss to explain this phenomenon. I…” Her voice trailed off. She struggled to regain her composure, then forced herself to continue. “This small solar system cannot be the source of the stars’ power. Logically, the source simply cannot be here.”

  “I believe the source of the stars to be… otherworldly,” Paramo said, staring at the vision of beauty before them. “The appearance of the… ‘ghost’ of Cristian Stefánsson… all but confirms this suspicion. I believe it’s high time to stop worrying about logic here.”

  Machiko looked at him. This was crazy. “Well, if they are an illusion that only we can perceive, the cartography room’s sensors will soon be able to tell us.”

  Paramo nodded, still unable to look away from the sight. “Good idea. Then we’ll go to the cartography room. Perhaps we can discover where these stars are headed.”

  “He told us to follow the stars…” Chen said absently.

  Paramo clamped his jaw shut and looked at her thoughtfully. “Indeed, he did, Lorelei. Indeed he did.”

  Other than the Warmaster’s Chamber, one of Paramo’s favourite places aboard Earth Tower One was the cartography room. With the holographic map activated, standing on the cartography deck was like lying in a country field staring up at the night sky - or better, like hanging suspended in space; one need only lean forward to touch the nearest star…

  At the moment, the holographic map wasn’t activated; Paramo stood, surrounded by biological computers, sensors, tracking devices designed to monitor the planet Earth’s precise position in space - using data correlated between all five Earth Towers which made up the Array. Beside him, Lorelei Chen stood patiently, while Machiko sat at a console, awaiting a readout. Paramo gazed at the nearby bank of holographic screens, which displayed images of the red stars at various times and locations.

  He was using the mystery of Cristian Stefánsson’s ‘ghost’ and these red stars to focus, to extricate himself from grief. His initial fury and frustration had ebbed. There was nothing he could do to help the poor, innocent colonists who had been killed in the Empyreal Sun’s most recent attacks; but something told him these red stars were linked to this whole thing somehow… and might lead to a way to stop whatever atrocities Xam Bahr had planned next.

  Machiko leaned forward as a readout scrolled onto the air in front of her; Paramo caught the movement in his peripheral vision and turned, expectant. “According to these scans,” she said, “the red stars are a conflux of temporal energy which enter our universe from hyperspace and travel through our galaxy, before entering hyperspace again.” She paused and frowned, apparently having lost her place. “Their exact nature is unknown, but the computer suggests extradimensional origin.”

  Chen took a deep breath. “That’s obvious. But where are they headed?”

  Paramo moved away and began to pace, hoping the movement might keep his weary mind and body alert; he had slept little over the past few days.

  Machiko pressed several controls on the console. Within seconds, the room around them dissolved, replaced by a huge, twinkling map of the galaxy. As they watched, a glowing red line appeared in the starry display, forming an arc between suns. Chen stepped closer, her pulse quickening. Yes, the answer was here…

  Machiko consulted the computer once more, then looked up. “Proxima Centauri.” She touched more controls, enlarging the display of Proxima Centauri’s star to reveal the four planets orbiting it.

  Paramo studied the red line marking the path of the crimson stars - and saw that it precisely intersected the third planet.

  “That’s where they’re leading us,” Paramo said, amazed. “Proserpina.”

  After a beat’s silence, Machiko added softly, “Proserpina is home to Rhino Colony, one of the very oldest of the Extrasolar Colonies, founded in 17 ND.”

  Chen nodded, and turned to face Paramo with a grim expression. “You know we have to check this out…”

  Paramo looked at her, then turned back to stare at the display, and the slowly revolving third planet. He nodded, though he had no idea what they would find out there. “Very well,” he said. “You can take my ship, the Daedalus. But please - bring it back in one piece.”

  The purpose-built Grand Throne Room in Reria City was a long, rectangular room with a very high ceiling, like a primitive cathedral. Giant faces looked down from the walls, sculpted delicately into the slender pillars supporting the ceiling down one end of the room. The tiled floor was an elaborate symmetrical mosaic, reflecting a similar design in overhead panels which seemed to move in a fluidic, abstract dance.

  As he entered the chamber, Eldo Drakar could see the golden throne, elaborately sculpted and embedded with precious stones. The throne sat on a platform at the top of a flight of stairs. Directly above hung a giant crystalline disk embossed with a bizarre symbol. It was identical to the symbol which had once adorned the throne room of the Sacred Palace on Earth, except this one appeared to be fashioned of solid gold. When he was halfway to the throne, a pair of doors behind the throne puffed open to reveal another, smaller room behind.

  Children, ranging in age from seven to nineteen years old, moved through the door and out onto the throne platform in a tight cluster. Wearing religious dress, the children were fashioned as ancient courtiers, protectively surrounding something at their centre. When the children peeled away, Drakar saw what they’d been fawning over.

  Lord Damarus stood facing two Genome Soldiers holding a male human slave between them. He looks like a walking animal corpse, Drakar thought, aghast at the sight before him. Like the mummifi
ed body of some sentient catlike creature dead a thousand years. It seemed amazing that any kind of life force could flow through the ugly, horrifying figure, much less that of the most powerful being the galaxy had ever known. The body itself wasn’t even that old; it was more like something else was slowly eating it, ravaging it from within, and quickly too.

  Drakar spoke through a translator sphere. “Excuse the intrusion, my Lord. I will return.” He immediately turned to leave.

  “Stay,” Damarus commanded, his voice booming and eerily flanged.

  Drakar turned back and waited, watching as the physical body which had once belonged to Xam Bahr took a step closer to the human slave. The slave glanced back at Damarus pleadingly, clearly scared out of his mind.

  Then it happened - the withered body of Xam Bahr tilted back its head, and a dazzling bright light came out of it.

  The Light - The Light was Damarus, somehow.

  Xam Bahr’s body, now nothing more than an empty shell, collapsed to the ground. The slave’s first impulse was to recoil and avert his gaze from the intense brightness of the Light - but then, curiously, he calmly turned and faced directly toward it. It was as though he had no will of his own. He seemed inextricably drawn toward it, called by an irresistible force. He stared directly into the blinding white Light glaring down at him from above. And as he reached a hand up into the Light, something touched his hand. Soft and warm, this bright presence quickly wrapped itself around him, engulfing the slave in its brilliance, submerging into his skin, into his soul. An emotion he could neither hide nor control leapt over his features. It was excitement. The excitement that came with a sense of deliverance. The excitement it was only natural to feel when destiny was announcing itself…