The Complete New Dominion Trilogy

by Drury, Matthew J.

  “You don’t remember anything else, inbetween?”

  “I’ve tried,” he said honestly. “But I can’t pin anything down. Except… a word, maybe. Eidolon. That’s all. What does it mean?”

  Memories flooded through Chen’s mind, and she turned away. Distorted images, feelings of fear… running through the alien city ten years ago, frantically boarding the Thunder, and then Cris pounding on the door like a wraith in the night. “I… I’m not sure,” she said. “After you… came back, you mentioned an Eidolon.” She wanted to let it slide; it was a memory so out of the blue, so far from her immediate concerns… but somehow so loud inside, all of a sudden.

  “Tell me,” Cris insisted.

  She felt surprised by his insistence, but decided to follow him with it, at least for the time being. She trusted him, even when he frightened her. “It… You said you were saved by the Eidolon, but never elaborated any further. Just that it - he - had saved you.” She looked deeply into his eyes, seeking his intentions.

  He turned away, peering up at the ceiling, as if he’d been on the verge of opening up; then something scared him, and he pulled it all in once more. “What happened to me, Lora? Did I become Damarus, then?”

  She nodded, looking sad. “Yes. Yes, Cris, you did, despite what my future self told me…”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Chen faltered for a moment, as if she were unprepared to answer. “I was told that I could stop it. Stop you turning into him. That the future was not set in stone and there was still a chance to change things for the better. But despite my best intentions, it still happened.”

  Cris leaned forward, whispered back in the same tone. “Yet here I am.”

  Chen felt a tremor of apprehension. “I know.”

  He stood up and stepped toward her, putting his arm around her shoulders. Fit, sharp-featured, and dark-haired, he had surrendered the nervous scowl that she previously remembered as his signature expression. Reflexively, Chen curled her arm around his waist and leaned against his chest - the chest of a man she had witnessed single-handedly destroy a star, who had later become the most ruthless tyrannical dictator in history and the focus of her very own religious beliefs - and she noticed with some relief that his heart was beating, once more. He was truly living, now. But how? And why? Those questions were more difficult to answer. “I can’t explain this,” she said, “and it scares me.”

  Cris turned slightly to gaze at her. “If it’s any consolation, Lora, I’m scared, too.”

  She smiled and laughed shortly. “I don’t have to say a thing, do I?”

  He shook his head and brushed his hair away from his eyes. Then Chen pressed her lips to his in a lingering kiss of passion. When their kiss ended, tears were in her eyes. “I love you,” she said softly. “I’ve wanted you back so much over the past ten years…”

  He reached up a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes. “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I love you,” she repeated, “and I love Machiko. My heart feels torn between the two of you. I don’t know what to do. I can’t have both of you. Can I?”

  He smiled his familiar cocky smile. “Let’s… just take things slow here, Lora. Things have changed. I can see that. Maybe we should concentrate on why I’m here, for now.” Then his face grew tender and he kissed her gently on the forehead.

  She nodded, taking a step back.

  “Where is Machiko, anyway?” Cris asked, changing the subject.

  For a moment, she looked worried. “She was summoned for emergency fleet operations in the Sirius Sector,” she told him. “I’ve been ordered to take care of you.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden,” he said.

  She smiled. “Don’t be silly. You’re not. Anyway, Paramo thinks you’re strong enough to go for a little walk now. He’s eager to speak to you after all this time.”

  “I’m very pleased to hear it,” Cris smiled. “I’ve been sitting in this room for long enough. Do you know the expression ‘stir crazy’?”

  “No - but I can guess what it means.” She led them through the doorway down a vast corridor. Cris followed, matching her step for step, hoping he’d done the right thing by coming here.

  Cristian Stefánsson had so adapted to the low gravity of Earth Tower One that the long strides he was taking seemed perfectly normal to him. Half a gee, he had estimated - just right to give a sense of well-being. They met only a few people on their walk through the gargantuan structure, all of them strangers - military personnel going about their official business - but every one gave him a smile of recognition and a nod. Word of his arrival had apparently spread through the facility like wildfire. He felt like some kind of celebrity, though perhaps for the wrong reasons.

  “This place is enormous,” he observed as they walked along another completely featureless corridor. He was still trying to fathom the sheer scale of the structure when he had another surprise. They arrived at what appeared to be some kind of subway system - admittedly a miniature one, with a single small coach capable of seating only a dozen passengers. It was part of a huge personnel transport system, a network of inductively powered transport tubes allowing the titanic expanse of Earth Tower One to be traversed in a high-speed manner.

  “Warmaster’s Chamber,” ordered Chen, and they drew silently and swiftly away from the terminal.

  As far as Cris could judge by speed and elapsed time, they must have travelled at least three kilometres before the vehicle came to a silent stop, the doors opened, and a bland automated voice intoned, “Good day, Lorelei Chen. Warmaster Paramo is expecting you.”

  When the outer door of the terminal opened, they walked down another short corridor and entered the Warmaster’s Chamber. Cris braced himself as the door opened, so taken aback by the huge viewing window he felt like he was stepping out into nothing but the utter blackness of space.

  Ammold Paramo sat in his chair, back turned to them, staring out the window that formed the entire outer wall of his inner sanctum. The semispherical edge of the planet Earth filled the entire lower half of the viewing window, its brightness dominating but not completely obscuring the field of stars behind it. The scene encapsulated everything that Paramo believed about the galaxy: it was beautiful, glorious and deadly. Life could spring up in the least likely of places in the most unimaginable of forms, only to be snuffed out in a blink of the cosmic eye.

  He wasn’t about to let that happen to humanity.

  “Viewing window off,” he said, and the wall became opaque, leaving him alone in a large, dimly lit room.

  “Lights on,” he said, and illumination spilled from the ceiling. He spun his chair around so it was facing away from the viewing window, and turned his attention to his guests, who waited patiently.

  “Warmaster,” Chen said. “May I present - ”

  “Cristian Stefánsson,” Paramo nodded vigorously, and got to his feet. “We’ve met before, of course. How are you feeling, my old friend?”

  Cris gave a slight smile. “Much better now I have my memory back. Thankyou, sir. It’s good to see you again.”

  Paramo took a few steps forward. “You know, there was once a time when I would have found this very hard to believe, you standing here before us after all this time. Alive and well. But experience has long since taught me not to be surprised by such… miraculous events.”

  “No-one is surprised more than me, sir,” Cris told him. “Like I said to Lora, the last thing I remember is dying. After that, there’s nothing. I understand that I… became Damarus, but I have no memory of it. Now… I’m back? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Paramo examined him thoughtfully, fascinated. “It is most peculiar indeed, that you should return to us at this time, under these circumstances…”

  Chen frowned. “Circumstances? What do you mean, Ammold? What are you not telling me?”

  He looked at her. “I’m afraid that dark events are transpiring, Lorelei, events much grander than we had originally imagined. Accordin
g to our Deep Space Observatories, a cataclysmic quantum event was detected five weeks ago, an unexplainable resonance cascade that coincides with Cristian’s arrival on Proserpina. Since his reappearance at that time, I also began hearing rumours of Lord Damarus’ return, somewhere beyond the outer fringes of the Alliance’s borders - words of a magical being with great and mystical powers. At first I dismissed these rumours as fantasy or propaganda, but they have since been confirmed by the Nommos Emperor himself. The religious devotion of Damarus’ followers has since reached fever pitch. The Empyreal Sun fleet has now moved en masse into Nommos space, with the intention of wiping them out. Reports are fragmentary, but my instincts tell me that war is coming. As you know, I have dispatched a contingent of battleships to assist the Nommos people at this time…”

  Chen frowned. “Lord Damarus has returned?” She blinked. It wasn’t possible. “But Cris is…”

  “Nothing is certain,” Paramo explained. “Right now, this is only conjecture, and strictly confidential. But my opinion is that whatever the Empyreal Sun did with the Xeilig Ark all those weeks ago, whatever bizarre ritual they performed… must have… forced Damarus back into our world somehow, from whatever dimension he had disappeared into - perhaps cascading his essence into two separate parts. The channelling of his life force must have required so great an energy that Cristian and Damarus have now each been given a separate, independent existence. Like Borromean rings; if you remove one component, you free all the rest.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Chen said, visibly troubled.

  “I know it sounds fanciful,” Paramo said. “But we are talking about something extradimensional here, and it’s my best theory. Though it doesn’t explain the red stars, or the ‘ghost’ we saw…”

  “The Eidolon,” Cris blurted, looking at Chen. “If what Paramo says is true, then whatever that thing is out there, this magical being claiming to be Lord Damarus, this… other part of me… it’s the Eidolon. I don’t know what it really is, but I know it’s evil. Malevolent. I can tell you that much, for sure.”

  Lorelei Chen felt her stomach lurch at the very mention of the word. She exchanged glances with Paramo. “There is one who might be able to tell us,” she said. “One who has given us answers before. The Samán of Monsula.”

  Paramo took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Painful memories began to surface. He hesitated, then said, “Perhaps you are right.”

  A soft overhead chime sounded then, indicating an incoming message from one of Paramo’s field operatives. He turned to the circular holographic pad in the centre of the room he used to receive incoming calls. When activated, it would project a three-dimensional representation of whomever he was speaking to, almost making it seem as if they were standing in the room with him. “Accept,” he muttered, and the image of Commander Kai Leng materialised above the holo-pad.

  Like most of humanity, Leng was a child of a truly global culture. His Lahmian heritage was clearly predominant in his dark hair and eyes, but around the jaw and nose were subtle clues pointing to some Emnoutian ancestry as well.

  “We found them,” Kai Leng reported.

  Paramo had no need to ask who he was talking about. A top field agent, Kai Leng had for nearly three years been on a mission to track down a single target, the Empyreal Sun’s secret base of operations. “Where?” he asked.

  “Reria. A planet in an extremely unstable sector of space… Sagittarius A*.” The corded muscles of Kai Leng’s neck momentarily tightened with revulsion as he spoke the name - a completely involuntary, but understandable, reaction. Sagittarius A* was the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy - the largest type of black hole, on the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses - a no-go zone, a place from which no ship had ever returned.

  “Reria?” Paramo repeated. It seemed unfeasible, but at the same time it made perfect sense. It was small wonder why the Empyreal Sun had gone for so long without being detected. He nodded. “Thankyou, Commander. Return to the Ballog II and await my orders.”

  The holo-pad faded. Paramo thought for a moment, then turned back to Chen and Cris. He felt stunned by indecision. A thousand things were happening all at once; his mind was in turmoil, and the future was uncertain. The decisions he made over the course of the next few hours would decide the fate of the entire Terran Alliance.

  “What do we do now?” Chen asked expectedly.

  “We prepare for full-scale war,” Paramo said with a profound sadness. His words hung in the air about them, thick with emotion and concern.

  “Behold Damarus, the Prophet who records the Holy Word of the Lord GOD, who says, ‘Homage to thee, O thou who believes in My Chosen Prophet. He who will conquer Death and come forth as a living soul on two horizons. His enemies are given to the fire. The children of impotent revolt shall never rise up again.”

  THE BOOK OF QIYAMA, CHAPTER 1, VERSES 1-2

  (QIYAMA 1:1-2)

  20

  “According to the calculations projected on your holo screens, the Empyreal Sun fleet will reach the Sirius Sector within the next eight hours. Their numbers are many, far more than we had originally anticipated. With much of the Nommos fleet spread throughout Terran space in an effort to quell their random attacks on colonies there, we run a serious risk of defeat when the enemy reaches our homeworld. We were not prepared for this.”

  A rumble of stunned and angry growls shook the room. Baron Jukaga settled back in his chair and waited for the storm to settle.

  “This is preposterous, an insult,” Dret Talmak snapped, looking around the room as if seeking to find someone to blame. “How did we ever get to this state? Our fleets are the finest, our warriors filled with the zeal of the gods, the will to die for the glory of the Empire. By the blood of Sivar, how could we possibly be outnumbered by this terrorist scum? We were almost on the verge of defeating Xam Bahr for good! How did this happen!” and as he finished he slammed his fist down on his holo projector, shattering it, as if by so doing the grim figures would simply die.

  Baron Jukaga of the Oun’orgell clan silently turned in his chair and looked to the end of the table where the Nommos Emperor, Khonsu II and his cousin Prince Thrakhath, sat. “Perhaps our Emperor can enlighten us,” Jukaga said silkily, lowering his head just enough to show obeisance, but doing it slowly, thus subtly revealing a disdain and defiance. The Emperor, of course, was not visible to those in the room. Sitting upon a high throne he was hidden from direct view by a silk-like screen emblazoned with the three crossed red staffs of the Imperial line. Sitting at the foot of the dais was Prince Thrakhath, who shifted slightly under Jukaga’s gaze, a soft yet audible growl echoing from his throat as a signal of his readiness to accept challenge, and also in reaction to the insult of directly placing a question to the Emperor.

  Emperor Khonsu sensed the challenge and the trap. He stirred uneasily, framing his thoughts. If he answered the question directly, it would be a lowering of himself before the leaders of the eight clans of Nommon; if he deferred the question to his cousin, the Prince, it would appear as if he were shifting responsibility - and ultimate blame.

  “You go too far, Baron,” a voice rumbled from the corner of the room, breaking the impasse. Baron Jukaga looked over at the speaker, Buktag’ka, first born of the clan of Smesa. The Smesa were, of the eight ruling families, considered to be of the lowest blood and as such could usually be counted on to favour the Emperor in a bid to elevate their status whenever possible. “Your insult to the Emperor is evident,” Buktag’ka snarled, coming to his feet and leaning over the table to stare at Jukaga. “It is not the place of the Imperial blood to answer questions here.”

  Jukaga looked around the table, gauging the response which ranged from nodded lowering of heads in agreement, to rippling of gills in defiance. It was time to change approach. “I stand rebuked before the Imperial blood and intended no insult,” he said, bowing low to the shaded throne.

  Prince Thrakhath, who sat at the foot
of the throne, and was not hidden from view like the Emperor, nodded curtly in reply.

  “Your passion is understandable,” the Emperor said from behind the screen, “but blame must fall upon my own brother, his Eminence the High Priest. He went to the Empyreal Sun on a mission of peace some weeks ago - but I have known for some time that he intended to betray me. I have no doubt that Eldo Drakar is the traitor here. He covets the throne, and now brings the full force of the enemy fleet to our homeworld in an attempt to overthrow me.”

  A roar of disbelief thundered from all the clan leaders. Khonsu waited for several minutes for the anger to die down and thought for a moment that more than one clan leader would call for a blood duel to avenge what they saw as an obscene slight of honour.

  “Treason!” Buktag’ka hissed. “It is an outrage!”

  “I agree. But this is not our primary concern,” Khonsu continued. “Eldo Drakar is a rogue element. Rather let us talk of the real enemy here: Lord Damarus reborn. The Empyreal Sun has achieved their goal of resurrecting him, and he threatens to destroy us all in this attack, before he undoubtedly turns his attentions to the Terran Alliance.”

  You bastard, Jukaga thought coldly. Everyone here knows that this is all your fault. You are despised by the populace because of your sweeping reforms. If you were anything like your father, this would not have happened. Our fleet would be here in its entirety, ready to defend the homeworld in a glorious battle, united as one. Instead, we are still relatively undefended, spread throughout the galaxy fighting on behalf of the humans. Yet if victory should come, it will be you who will sweep the honours around your feet, hailed as the saviour of Nommon. And even as he thought a concept that was beyond the range of most Nommos people, rage and intense hatred towards a superior, he still assumed the posture of obeisance and then slowly rose up to speak again. “We must decide on a course of action quickly,” he said, “for as we all know, the powers of Lord Damarus should not be underestimated. A direct attack from him could be disastrous.” He looked around the room, gauging the responses.